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THE  LIFE  AND  WORK  OF 

JOHN  RUSKIN 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  I 


VY^^ul, 


THE   LIFE   AND  WORK  OF 

JOHN  RUSKIN 


BY 


W.   G.   COLLINGWOOD,   M.  A. 

EDITOR  OF  "  THE  POEMS  OF  JOHN  RUSKIN,"  ETC. 


WITH  PORTRAITS  AND  OTHER 
ILLUSTRA  TIONS 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  I 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 

Cfoc  Hfoeretoc  $vt&8,  Cambrtojje 

1893 


Copyright,  1893, 
By  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


TO 

MRS.  ARTHUR   SEVERN 

WITH  GRATITUDE  FOR 

THE    HELP   WHICH    HAS  BROUGHT  THEM    TO    COMPLETION 

THESE  MEMOIRS  OF  HER  DISTINGUISHED  COUSIN 

ARE    INSCRIBED    BY 

THE  AUTHOR 


PREFACE. 


No  reader,  I  hope,  will  expect  in  this  instance 
the  usual  apologies  for  writing  a  book  on  one 
who  is  yet  among  us.  Mr.  Ruskin  has  been 
public  property,  so  to  say,  for  more  than  half  a 
century;  his  thoughts  have  been  common  sub- 
jects of  discussion,  and  his  actions  of  criticism ; 
so  that  there  need  be  no  indiscretion  in  relating 
the  true  story  of  his  life  and  work. 

If  excuse  were  wanted,  I  could  point  to  his 
own  confessions,  and  take  shelter  under  the  per- 
mission he  has  often  accorded  his  friends,  myself 
included,  to  print  his  letters  and  to  pry  into  the 
details  of  his  past.  Already  quite  a  literature  has 
grown  up  about  him,  inviting  the  reader's  inter- 
est, and  then  disappointing  it  with  slightness 
of  treatment.  Few,  even  among  the  warmest 
admirers  of  his  genius,  seem  to  be  fully  aware  of 
the  circumstances  of  his  development,  the  extent 
of  his  studies  and  occupations,  and  the  breadth 
of  his  outlook  upon  the  world.  His  autobio- 
graphy has  indeed  given  us  a  charming  picture 
of  his  boyhood,  in  all  its  most  intimate  details; 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

but  the  readers  of  "  Praeterita  "  cannot  help  wish- 
ing to  hear  the  sequel  of  the  story  so  untimely 
ended ;  to  trace  the  fortunes  of  that  precocious 
child  throughout  a  career  which  they  all  know  to 
have  been  brilliant,  though,  from  want  of  a  con- 
nected account,  they  cannot  follow  it,  as  they 
would,  from  dawn  to  meridian,  and  from  noonday 
to  evening  light. 

When  it  was  proposed  to  me  to  write  such  an 
account,  I  believed  that  previous  study  would 
make  the  task  an  easy  one.  I  had  the  privilege 
of  long  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Ruskin,  and  the 
advantage  of  having  worked  under  him,  in  differ- 
ent capacities,  at  different  times,  during  some 
twenty  years,  on  most  of  the  subjects  which  have 
occupied  his  attention  since  his  call  to  Oxford. 
I  had  already  collected  material  enough  for  a 
volume,  in  order  to  write  a  biographical  outline 
published  in  1889  under  the  editorship  of  Mr. 
John  Waugh,  of  Bradford.  I  was  compiling 
from  Mr.  Ruskin's  works  an  attempt  at  a  review 
of  his  art-philosophy,  and  retracing  with  care,  in 
the  manuscript  poems  and  other  remains  of  his 
youth,  the  history  he  has  indicated,  from  his  own 
point  of  view,  in  "  Praeterita." 

But  to  complete  a  biography  much  fuller  infor- 
mation was  needed.  All  the  materials  at  Brant- 
wood  were  kindly  placed  in  my  hands.  Papers 
put  aside  for  the  continuation  of  "  Praeterita  "  and 


PREFACE.  IX 

"  Dilecta  "  I  did  not  think  right  to  include,  in  the 
hope  that  one  day  he  might  be  able  to  finish  his 
own  work.  Of  private  letters  I  have  made  a 
sparing  use,  for  Mr.  Ruskin  has  been  an  extraor- 
dinarily fertile  correspondent;  there  are  already 
several  collections  of  his  letters  in  print,  and  no 
doubt  more  will  ultimately  appear.  A  "  Life  and 
Letters  "  worthy  of  the  title  would  be  altogether 
too  voluminous  and  one-sided,  —  quite  a  different 
kind  of  work  from  that  which  is  here  attempted ; 
though  a  number  of  samples  of  his  style  in  corre- 
spondence, many  of  them  new,  are  given,  with 
permission  from  his  publisher,  Mr.  George  Allen. 
Of  letters  received  by  Mr.  Ruskin,  a  few  speci- 
mens by  Carlyle  and  Browning,  with  a  distinct 
biographical  interest,  are  inserted. 

To  the  information  gained  from  these  papers 
much  has  been  added  from  many  sources. 
Among  the  older  friends  of  Mr.  Ruskin  who 
have  contributed  their  reminiscences,  I  would 
especially  mention  Miss  Prout,  the  great  artist's 
daughter,  whose  recollections  reach  back  to  the 
early  days  of  Denmark  Hill ;  for  later  years,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Arthur  Severn  are  the  chief  authorities, 
and  they  have  given  every  kind  of  assistance. 
Mrs.  Arthur  Severn  took  the  trouble  to  read  the 
whole  work  in  proof,  correcting  and  adding  many 
points  of  importance.  Mr.  Arthur  Severn  kindly 
sketched  Mr.  Ruskin's  three  homes  purposely  for 


X  PREFACE. 

this  work,  choosing  the  most  characteristic  points 
of  view.  The  drawings  by  Mr.  Ruskin,  illustrat- 
ing the  development  of  his  artistic  style,  have 
been  lent,  with  one  exception,  by  Mrs.  Severn. 
The  frontispiece  is  from  a  sketch  by  Mr.  Ruskin 
in  her  possession,  of  unique  value  and  interest: 
the  original  is  a  good  likeness  of  a  face  whose 
most  noteworthy  expressions  no  artist  or  photo- 
grapher has  quite  succeeded  in  catching,  and  the 
plate  is  a  triumph  of  chromolithograph  facsimile. 
To  the  same  friend  I  owe  the  four  blocks  of  por- 
traits by  Northcote  and  Richmond,  which  have 
appeared  in  the  "  Magazine  of  Art "  to  illustrate 
a  notice  of  the  "  Portraits  of  John  Ruskin,"  by 
Mr.  M.  H.  Spielmann.  Another  portrait  has 
been  lent  by  Mr.  H.  Jowett,  editor  of  "  Hazell's 
Magazine,"  from  the  photograph  which  Mr. 
Ruskin  has  considered  the  best  likeness  of  him- 
self. 

The  framework  of  chronology  into  which  all 
the  details  so  discovered  had  to  be  fitted,  and 
which  is  given  in  brief  abstract  in  the  Appen- 
dices, was  mainly  compiled,  with  infinite  labor 
and  wide  research,  by  Mr.  Sydney  C.  Cockerell. 
To  his  care  and  generosity  I  am  indebted  for  the 
confidence  with  which  I  have  been  able  to  treat 
the  course  of  the  story ;  and,  while  tacitly  correct- 
ing errors  of  date  in  previous  publications,  to 
assure   the   reader  that,  whatever  be  the  short- 


PREFACE.  XI 

comings  of  this  work,  its  main  statements  of  fact 
are  founded  on  the  fullest  attainable  evidence, 
most  carefully  sifted  and  weighed. 

Together  with  all  students  of  Ruskin,  I  must 
express  great  obligations  to  my  former  collabora- 
teur,  the  editor  of  "  Arrows  of  the  Chace,"  "  On 
the  Old  Road,"  "  Ruskiniana,"  etc.,  whose  valu- 
able work  has  paved  the  way  to  systematic  study 
of  Mr.  Ruskin's  life  and  writings.  Another  im- 
portant source  has  been  the  great  Bibliography 
now  in  progress;  to  its  editors,  Mr.  T.  J.  Wise 
and  Mr.  James  P.  Smart,  jun.,  I  owe  not  only 
private  help,  but  permission  to  abstract  from 
their  exhaustive  work  the  condensed  bibliography 
which  will  be  found  in  the  Appendices. 

In  the  compilation  of  the  Catalogue  of  Mr. 
Ruskin's  dated  drawings,  which  is  also  a  mere 
abridgment  of  fuller  information,  I  have  again 
to  acknowledge  great  help  from  Mr.  S.  C.  Cock- 
erell,  as  well  as  the  kindness  of  Lady  Simon, 
Mrs.  Talbot,  Mrs.  W.  H.  Churchill,  Miss  and 
Mr.  F.  Hilliard,  Prof.  C.  H.  Moore,  and  Mr. 
Richard  Norton,  of  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A.,  Mr.  A. 
Macdonald,  of  Oxford,  and  many  others. 

Lastly,  I  ought  to  apologize  to  some,  whose 
names  I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  mentioning  in 
connection  with  Mr.  Ruskin's,  without  asking 
their  leave.  Perhaps,  however,  the  apology  is 
due  rather  to  those  whose  friendship  and  services 


Xll  PREFACE. 

have  been  left  unnoticed.  But  they  are  begged 
to  remember  that  this  book  was  not  to  be  "  The 
Life  and  Friends  of  John  Ruskin,"  nor  his  "  Life 
and  Times."  Its  limits  are  expressed  by  the  title. 
It  is  intended  neither  as  an  apology  nor  as  a 
criticism;  it  records,  too  inadequately,  too  in- 
efficiently, I  know,  but  with  warm  regard  for 
its  hero  and  earnest  respect  for  truth,  the  story 
of  a  noble  life  and  the  main  issues  of  a  great 
man's  work. 

W.  G.  C. 

Lanehead,  Coniston,  October  21,  1892. 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK    I. 

THE  BOY   POET  (1819-1842). 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  The  Ruskin  Family  (1780-1819) 3 

II.   The  Father  of  the  Man  (1819-1825) 16 

III.  Perfervidum  Ingenium  (1826-1830) 30 

IV.  Mountain-Worship  (1830-1835) 42 

V.  A  Love-Story  (1836-1839) 61 

VI.   Kata  Phusin  (1836-1838) 73 

VII.  Sir  Roger  Newdigate's  Prize  (1837-1839) ...  92 

VIII.  The  Broken  Chain  (1 840-1841) 102 

IX.  The  Graduate  of  Oxford  (1841-1842)   ....  112 


BOOK  II. 


THE  ART  CRITIC   (1842-1860). 


I.  Turner  and  the  Ancients  (1 842-1 844) 

II.  Christian  Art  (1845-1847) 

III.  The  Seven  Lamps  (1847- 1849)  .... 

IV.  Stones  of  Venice  (1849-1851)  .... 
V.  Pre-Raphaelitism  (1851-1853)  .... 

VI.  The  Edinburgh  Lectures  (1853-1854) 

VII.  The  Working  Men's  College  (1854-1855) 

VIII.  Modern  Painters  continued  (1855-1856) 


123 

138 
i54 
164 
179 
194 
206 
222 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

IX.  The  Political  Economy  of  Art  (1857-1858)  .    .  237 

X.  Modern  Painters  concluded  (1858-1860)    ...  252 


APPENDIX. 

Chronology  (1819-1860) iii 

Bibliography  (1 834-1 860) ix 

Catalogue  of  Drawings  by  Mr.  Ruskin  (1829-1859)     .  xv 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


FAGB 

John  Ruskin,  by  Himself,  1864-1865.    {Aquatint)      Frontispiece 
John  Ruskin  at  the  Age  of  Three,  by  James  Northcote, 

R.  A.,  1822.    {Photogravure) 20 

"  The  Thorn  in  the  Foot  "  (the  head  painted  from  John 

Ruskin),  by  James  Northcote,  R.  A.,  1824.   {Photogravure)  22 

La  Scala  Monument,  Verona,  by  John  Ruskin,  1835    .    .  58 

Stirling  Palace  and  Church,  by  John  Ruskin,  1838  .    .  86 

Mr.  Ruskin's  Home  at  Herne  Hill 124 

The  Author  of  "  Modern  Painters,"  by  George  Rich- 
mond, R.  A.,  1842.    {Photogravure) 128 

Mr.  Ruskin's  Home  at  Denmark  Hill 134 

Olive-tree  at  Carrara,  by  John  Ruskin,  1845    ....  140 
The  Pilatus,  Lucerne,  by  John  Ruskin,  1846     ....  150 
John  Ruskin,  by  George  Richmond,  R.  A.,  1857.    {Photo- 
gravure)      244 


BOOK   I. 

THE  BOY  POET. 

(1819-1842.) 

"  Eat  fern-seed 
And  peer  beside  us,  and  report  indeed 
If  (your  word)  '  genius '  dawned  with  throes  and  stings 
And  the  whole  fiery  catalogue,  while  springs, 
Summers,  and  winters  quietly  came  and  went." 

Sordello. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    RUSKIN    FAMILY. 
(1780-1819.) 

"  And  still  within  our  valleys  here 
We  hold  the  kindred-title  dear, 
Even  when,  perchance,  its  far-fetched  claim 
To  Southern  ear  sounds  empty  name ; 
For  course  of  blood,  our  proverbs  deem, 
Is  warmer  than  the  mountain-stream." 

Scott. 

If  origin,  if  early  training  and  habits  of  life,  if 
tastes,  and  character,  and  associations,  fix  a  man's 
nationality,  then  John  Ruskin  is  a  Scotsman.  He 
was  born  in  London,  but  his  family  was  from 
Scotland.  He  was  brought  up  in  Surrey,  but 
the  friends  and  teachers,  the  standards  and  influ- 
ences of  his  early  life  were  chiefly  Scottish.  The 
writers  who  directed  him  into  the  main  lines  of 
his  thought  and  work,  not  so  much  because  he 
chose  them  as  leaders,  as  because  he  was  naturally 
brought  under  the  spell  of  their  inspiration,  were 
Scotsmen,  —  from  Sir  W.  Scott  and  Lord  Lind- 
say and  Principal  Forbes  to  the  master  of  his  later 
studies  of  men  and  the  means  of  life,  Thomas 
Carlyle.  The  religious  instinct  so  conspicuous 
in  him  is  a  heritage  from  Scotland ;  so  is  his  con- 


4  THE   LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

science  and  code  of  morality,  part  emotional,  part 
logical,  and  often  unlike  an  Englishman's  in  the 
points  that  satisfy  it  or  shock  it.  The  combina- 
tion of  shrewd  common  sense  and  romantic  senti- 
ment ;  the  oscillation  between  levity  and  dignity, 
from  caustic  jest  to  tender  earnest ;  the  restless- 
ness, the  fervor,  the  impetuosity,  —  all  these  are 
characteristics  of  a  Scotsman  of  parts,  and  highly 
developed  in  Ruskin. 

There  are  many  points  on  which  his  judgments 
are  totally  different  from  any  which  we  English 
should  anticipate;  no  doubt  because  he  repre- 
sents a  racial  character  which,  to  many  of  us,  is 
practically  alien.  We  who  are  not  his  kinsfolk 
find  ourselves  studying  him  almost  as  we  would 
study  a  foreigner,  the  more  interesting  from  his 
unfamiliarity.  And  as  no  man  is  a  prophet  in  his 
own  country,  though  he  may  find  a  few  disciples 
there,  it  is  from  Scotland  that  he  has  met  with 
the  severest  opposition,  the  deepest  disappoint- 
ments of  his  life,  as  well  as  the  best  help  and 
most  devoted  hero-worship. 

The  English  world  owes  much  to  Scotland,  in 
conduct  of  war  and  in  enterprise  of  commerce 
and  industry,  but  still  more  in  literature.  And 
above  the  rest,  four  names  stand  preeminent: 
Burns  and  Scott,  Carlyle  and  Ruskin. 

But  there  are  Scots  and  Scots.  Ruskin  is  not 
only  Scottish,  but  Jacobite.  Although  one  of 
his  great-grandfathers  represented  a  Covenanting 
stock,  the  tradition  of  loyalty  to  the  Stuarts  ran 


THE    RUSKIN    FAMILY.  5 

in  his  other  kindred ;  and  a  tradition  which  meant 
so  much,  during  a  hundred  years  of  struggle  and 
strife,  could  not  fail  to  leave  an  impress  on  the 
family  character.  It  comes  out  in  his  tastes  in 
literature,  in  his  ideals  of  politics  and  society. 
That  strange  Tory  revolutionism  of  "  Fors  Clavi- 
gera,"  at  once  monarchical  and  democratic,  loyal 
and  radical,  holding  so  close  to  established  usage 
and  yet  so  ideal  in  its  aims ;  the  romanticism,  the 
altruistic  self-abandonment,  the  readiness  to  rush 
in  on  the  weaker  side  with  a  passionate  cry  for 
poetical  justice,  —  these  mark  him  as  inheriting 
a  character  uncommon  among  us  English,  who 
like  fair  play,  indeed,  but  leave  the  disputants  to 
fight  it  out;  whose  conservatism  is  law-abiding, 
and  whose  reforms  are  nothing  if  not  immediately 
practical.  It  must  be  an  old  Scottish  trait  that 
comes  out,  too,  in  his  devotion  to  France  and  the 
French,  in  spite  of  a  free  criticism  of  them ;  an 
Englishman  with  his  tastes  would  have  been 
more  at  home  among  the  ancient  Greeks,  or  the 
modern  Italians ;  a  Scot  of  the  other  party,  like 
Carlyle,  loved  the  Germans.  There  is  not  only 
the  Scot  and  the  Jacobite,  but  something  of  the 
Highland  Celt,  in  Ruskin. 

The  origin  of  the  family  name  is  unknown. 
It  was  commonly  supposed  to  be  simply  a  vulgar 
nickname,  —  Roughskin ;  but  every  one  who  has 
looked  into  such  affairs  knows  how  little  the 
popular  derivations  are  to  be  trusted ;  they  are 
usually  no  more  than  blundering  explanations  of 


6  THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

things  that  have  been  forgotten.  And  in  this 
case,  if  Ruskin  be  Roughskin,  how  comes  it  that 
there  is  a  family  of  Rusken,  with  an  "  e,"  of  earlier 
origin  apparently,  of  greater  worldly  standing  and 
expansion  ?  —  to  whom  the  Ruskins  claimed  some 
kind  of  affinity;  whose  arms,  with  a  difference, 
they  assumed. 

The  question  is  trifling,  except  to  those  who 
are  curious  about  the  race  from  which  an  interest- 
ing man  has  sprung.  It  is  certain  that  there 
once  was  a  family  of  Rusking,  the  patronymic 
for  some  Teutonic  hero  Rusk  (or  whatever  the 
form  was) ;  and  they  were  Angles,  for  a  branch 
of  them  left  their  mark  in  the  settlement  in 
Lincolnshire  with  the  Anglian  ending  "  ton,"  — 
Ruskington.  As  the  Angles  also  colonized  the 
Lowlands  of  Scotland,  another  line  may  have 
preserved  the  name,  curtailed  by  dropping  the 
"  g ; "  and  with  that  genealogy,  if  it  could  be 
proved,  Mr.  Ruskin  might  be  claimed  by  the 
admirers  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  genius  as  a  Teuton. 
But  this  explanation,  also,  hardly  gives  the  variant 
Rusken. 

Both  names  are  unusual ;  they  do  not  figure  in 
history ;  the  family  is  not  one  of  the  great  clans. 
The  name  seems  to  start  up  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  with  a  soli- 
tary Ruskin  in  Edinburgh,  as  if  he  were  some 
immigrant  known  by  the  name  of  his  place  of 
origin,  —  one  of  the  many  who  drifted  to  the 
towns  in  that  period,  seeking  safety  or  a  field  for 


THE    RUSKIN    FAMILY.  7 

labor,  with  clan-name  either  concealed  through  pru- 
dence, or  too  common  to  identify  him.  We  find 
a  kirk  of  Roskeen,  near  Invergordon,  on  the  firth 
of  Cromarty,  —  a  Gaelic  name  which,  variously 
transliterated  into  the  Sassenach,  might  give  Rus- 
ken  to  an  earlier  immigrant,  Ruskin  to  the  later. 
About  this  dimly  seen  person  we  only  know  that 
his  son  was  famous  for  his  handsome  looks,  and 
handed  on  to  his  children  the  deep-eyed  earnest- 
ness and  poetical  countenance  of  the  typical 
Highlander ;  and  that  his  great-grandson  has  ex- 
emplified, like  any  chieftain  or  bard  of  romance, 
the  distinguishing  spirit  of  the  Gael.  For  the 
ideals  of  John  Ruskin  are  surely  Celtic.  Whether 
he  comes  from  the  clans  of  Ross,  or  from  some 
obscurer  and  less  traceable  stock,  he  stands  as 
the  central  figure  among  those  artists  and  poets, 
writers  and  orators,  whose  inspiration  we  refer  to 
survivals  of  Ossianic  nature  worship,  Fingalian 
heroism,  and  Columban  piety;  he  exemplifies  the 
"  recrudescence  of  the  Celt." 

But  the  exponent  of  a  national  ideal  is  rarely 
pure-bred,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  this:  to 
expound  an  ideal,  one  must  be  in  touch  with  the 
actual ;  to  introduce  one  party  to  another  you 
must  hold  the  hands  of  each.  It  is  commonly 
remarked  that  notable  men  are  of  mixed  race. 
And  in  this  case  the  Celtic  fire  was  fed  with 
some  west-country  piety  and  tempered  with  an  in- 
fusion of  coolness  from  a  sailor  of  the  North  Sea. 

Ruskin  of  Edinburgh,  the  second  known  of  the 


8  THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

name,  married,  about  1780,  Catherine  Tweddale, 
daughter  of  the  minister  of  Glenluce 1  in  Wig- 
townshire, and  born  in  the  old  abbey  of  St.  Nin- 
ian.  Her  miniature  shows  a  bright  and  animated 
brunette,  run  away  with,  at  sixteen,  by  the  hand- 
some young  husband.  He  was  in  the  wine  trade 
in  Edinburgh,  and  lived  in  the  Old  Town  at  the 
head  of  George  Wynd,  then  a  respectable  neigh- 
borhood. They  belonged  to  the  upper  middle 
class,  with  cultivated  tastes  and  comfortable  sur- 
roundings, highly  connected,  and  entertaining, 
among  others,  such  a  man  as  Dr.  Thomas  Brown, 
the  professor  of  philosophy,  a  great  light  in  his 
own  day,  and  still  conspicuous  in  the  constella- 
tion of  Scotch  metaphysicians. 

Their  son,  John  James  Ruskin  (born  May  10, 
1785),  was  sent  to  the  famous  High  School  of 
Edinburgh,  under  Dr.  Adam,  the  most  renowned 
of  Scottish  headmasters ;  and  there  he  received 
the  sound  old-fashioned  classical  education.  Be- 
fore he  was  sixteen  his  sister  Jessie  was  already 

1  To  a  Catherine  Tweddale,  aunt  or  great-aunt  of  this  man,  the 
original  "  Solemn  League  and  Covenant "  had  been  delivered  by 
Baillie  of  Jarviswood  before  his  execution,  about  1685.  The  docu- 
ment was  sold  at  the  sale  of  this  Mr.  Tweddale's  library,  at  his 
death,  when  his  children  were  yet  young.  His  brother-in-law  was 
the  Dr.  Adair  who  is  seen  in  Benjamin  West's  picture,  supporting 
General  Wolfe  at  Quebec  and  trying  to  stanch  his  blood.  Robin 
Adair  of  the  song  was,  they  say,  an  ancestor.  The  Adairs  of 
Gennoch,  Rosses  of  Balsarrach,  and  Agnews  of  Lochnaw,  from 
whom  Mr.  Ruskin  is  descended,  were  among  the  noblest  families 
of  the  south.  His  detailed  pedigree  is  thick  with  names  of  dis- 
tinction in  the  army,  navy,  and  learned  professions. 


THE    RUSKIN    FAMILY. 


M 

§3 

«  w 

-Sit! 
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fit 

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■gw  a 

—Bridget. 

liuO 

— Margaret. 

2  «  2 

^u 

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it 

— Charles  (drowned  1834). 

—George  (of  Croydon). 
— William. 

SP 

•O  00 

— John  (d.  in  Australia). 

c 

| 

X     . 

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o^. 

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OR 

- 

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O   X 


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asti 

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b  c 

HI 

a, 
-Other  Issue. 


boa  C< 

O   «J3  — 
«-C   to  o 

a 


B.Q 


-Jessie  (1818-1827). 

-Mary  (1815-1849). 

-Margaret  and  Peter  (d.  young). 

-Catherine  (d.  young). 

-Andrew  (d.  in  Australia). 

-William,  M.  D.  (Tunbridge  Wells). 

-John  (of  Glasgow). 

-James  (d.  young). 

1 — Other  Issue. 


,— Herbert. 
Violet 
Agnew. 


•£(* 


s* 


-  „         —Arthur. 
■$Ed     i-Lily. 

Other  Issue. 


IO         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

married,  at  Perth,  to  Peter  Richardson,  a  tanner, 
living  at  Bridge  End  by  the  Tay.  And  so  his 
cousin  Margaret  Cox  was  sent  for,  to  fill  the 
vacant  place. 

She  was  a  daughter  of  old  Mr.  Ruskin's  sister, 
who  had  married  a  Captain  Cox,  sailing  from 
Yarmouth  for  the  herring  fishery.  He  had  died 
in  1789,  or  thereabouts,  from  the  results  of  an 
accident  while  riding  homewards  to  his  family 
after  one  of  his  voyages;  and  his  widow,  with 
Scottish  energy,  maintained  herself  in  comfort  by 
keeping  the  old  King's  Head  Inn  at  Croydon 
market-place,  and  brought  up  her  two  daughters 
with  the  best  available  education.  The  younger 
one  married  another  Mr.  Richardson,  a  baker  at 
Croydon;  so  that  by  an  odd  coincidence  there 
were  two  families  of  Richardsons,  unconnected 
with  one  another  except  through  their  relation- 
ship to  the  Ruskins. 

Margaret,  the  elder  daughter,  who  came  to 
keep  house  for  her  uncle  in  Edinburgh,  was  then 
nearly  twenty  years  of  age.  She  had  been  the 
model  pupil  at  her  Croydon  day-school ;  tall  and 
handsome,  pious  and  practical,  she  was  just  the 
girl  to  become  the  confidante  and  adviser  of  her 
dark-eyed,  active,  and  romantic  young  cousin, — 
his  guardian  angel. 

Some  time  before  the  beginning  of  1807,  John 
James,  having  finished  his  education  at  the  High 
School,  went  out  to  seek  his  fortune  in  London. 
He  was  followed  by  a  kind  letter  from  Dr.  Thomas 


THE    RUSKIN    FAMILY.  II 

Brown,  who  advised  him  to  keep  up  his  Latin 
and  to  study  Political  Economy,  for  the  Profes- 
sor looked  upon  him  as  a  young  man  of  unusual 
promise  and  power.  During  some  two  years 
he  worked  as  a  clerk  in  the  house  of  Gordon, 
Murphy  &  Co.,  where  he  made  friends  and  laid 
the  foundation  of  his  prosperity.  Along  with 
him  at  the  office  there  was  a  Mr.  Peter  Domecq, 
owner  of  the  Spanish  vineyards  of  Macharnudo, 
learning  the  commercial  part  of  his  business  in 
London,  the  headquarters  of  the  sherry  trade. 
He  admired  his  fellow-clerk's  capacity  so  much 
that,  on  setting  up  for  himself,  he  offered  the 
management  of  his  London  branch  to  John  James 
Ruskin ;  and  not  only  that,  but  practically  the 
headship  of  the  firm,  since  the  London  agency 
was  naturally  the  most  important  part  of  the 
concern.  So  they  entered  into  partnership,  about 
1809,  as  Ruskin,  Telford  &  Domecq;  Domecq 
contributing  the  sherry,  Mr.  Henry  Telford  the 
capital,  and  Ruskin  the  brains. 

He  returned  home  to  Edinburgh  on  a  visit,  and 
arranged  marriage  with  his  cousin  Margaret  if 
she  would  wait  for  him  until  he  was  safely  estab- 
lished ;  and  then  he  set  to  work  at  the  responsi- 
bilities of  creating  a  new  business.  It  was  a 
severer  task  than  he  had  anticipated ;  for  in 
course  of  time  his  father's  health  and  affairs  both 
went  wrong :  he  left  Edinburgh  and  settled  at 
Bower's  Well,  Perth ;  ended  unhappily,  and  left  a 
load  of  debt  behind  him,  which  the  son,  sensitive 


12         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

to  the  family  honor,  undertook  to  pay  before  lay- 
ing by  a  penny  for  himself.  It  took  nine  years 
of  assiduous  labor  and  economy.  He  worked  the 
business  entirely  by  himself.  The  various  depart- 
ments that  most  men  intrust  to  others  he  filled 
in  person.  He  managed  the  correspondence,  he 
traveled  for  orders,  he  arranged  the  importation, 
he  directed  the  growers,  out  in  Spain,  and  gradu- 
ally built  up  a  great  business,  paid  off  his  father's 
creditors,  and  secured  his  own  competence. 

This  was  not  done  without  sacrifice  of  health, 
which  he  never  recovered ;  nor  without  forming 
habits  of  over-anxiety  and  toilsome  minuteness, 
which  lasted  his  life  long.  But  his  business 
cares  were  relieved  by  cultured  tastes.  He  loved 
art,  and  drew  well  in  water-colors  in  the  old  style. 
He  loved  literature,  and  read  aloud  finely  all  the 
old  standard  authors,  though  he  was  not  too  old- 
fashioned  to  admire  "  Pickwick  "  and  the  "  Noctes 
Ambrosianae  "  when  they  appeared.  He  loved  the 
scenery  and  architecture  among  which  he  had 
traveled  in  Scotland  and  Spain ;  but  he  could 
find  interest  in  almost  any  place  and  any  subject, 
—  an  alert  man,  in  whom  practical  judgment  was 
joined  to  a  romantic  temperament,  strong  feelings 
and  opinions  to  extended  sympathies.  His  por- 
traits by  Copley  and  Northcote  give  the  idea  of 
an  expressive  face,  sensitive,  refined,  every  feature 
a  gentleman's. 

So,  after  those  nine  years  of  work  and  waiting, 
he  went  to  Perth  to  claim  his  cousin's  hand.     She 


THE    RUSKIN    FAMILY.  1 3 

was  for  further  delay ;  but  with  the  minister's 
help  he  persuaded  her  one  evening  into  a  prompt 
marriage  in  the  Scotch  fashion,  drove  off  with  her 
next  morning  to  Edinburgh,  and  on  to  the  house 
he  had  prepared  in  London  at  54  Hunter  Street, 
Brunswick  Square. 

The  heroine  of  this  little  drama  was  no  ordinary 
bride.  At  Edinburgh  she  had  found  herself  — 
though  well  brought  up,  for  Croydon  —  inferior  to 
the  society  of  the  Modern  Athens.  As  the  affi- 
anced of  a  man  of  ability  she  felt  it  her  duty  to 
make  herself  his  match  in  mental  culture,  as  she 
was  already  in  her  own  department  of  practical 
matters.  Under  Dr.  Brown's  direction  and  stim- 
ulated by  his  notice,  she  soon  became,  not  a 
blue-stocking,  but  well-read,  well-informed  above 
the  average.  She  was  one  of  those  persons,  too 
rarely  met  with,  who  set  themselves  a  very  high 
standard  in  every  way,  and  resolve  to  drag  both 
themselves  and  their  neighbors  up  to  it.  But,  as 
the  process  is  difficult,  so  it  is  disappointing. 
People  became  rather  shy  of  Mrs.  Ruskin,  and 
she  of  them,  so  that  her  life  was  solitary  and  her 
household  quiet.  It  was  not  from  any  narrow 
Puritanism  that  she  made  so  few  friends ;  her 
morality  and  her  piety,  strict  as  they  were  within 
their  own  lines,  permitted  her  the  enjoyments  and 
amusements  of  life ;  still  less  was  there  any  cyni- 
cism or  misanthropy.  But  she  devoted  herself  to 
her  husband  and  son  ;  she  was  too  proud  to  court 
those  above  her  in  worldly  rank,  and  she  was  not 


14         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

easily  approached  except  by  people  fully  equal  to 
her  in  strength  of  character,  of  whom  there  could 
never  be  many.  And  so  the  ordinary  acquain- 
tances got  an  unkindly  view  of  her ;  by  the  young 
especially  she  was,  in  her  later  years,  feared  rather 
than  loved.  But  to  the  few  who  made  their  way 
to  her  friendship  she  was  a  true  and  valuable 
friend. 

It  is  worth  while  thus  briefly  studying  the  par- 
ents, the  sort  of  people  from  whom  John  Ruskin 
sprang,  for  it  was  not  only  in  the  unconscious 
heredity  of  race  that  they  contributed  to  his  char- 
acter. No  man  was  ever  more  carefully  formed 
by  deliberate  training  and  prearranged  education ; 
and  few  men  have  more  conscientiously  and  ef- 
fectually carried  out  their  parents'  plan.  Most  of 
our  talented  young  people  revolt  from  the  paren- 
tal regimen,  and  owe,  or  fancy  they  owe,  every- 
thing to  themselves.  They  set  up  to  be  intel- 
lectual Melchisedeks,  "without  father,  without 
mother,  without  descent."  They  boast  in  being 
mentally  "  self-made  "  men  and  women,  as  if  such 
spontaneous  generation  of  genius  were  possible. 
The  rest  of  mankind,  the  vast  majority  of  virtuous 
respectabilities,  accept  the  family  tradition  and 
walk  in  it,  without  either  inquiry  or  restiveness : 
what  was  good  enough  for  their  parents  is  good 
enough  for  them.  But  in  John  Ruskin  we  see  a 
son  who  accepted  the  parental  direction,  —  luckily 
for  him,  worthy  of  acceptance ;  he  never  came  into 
violent  collision  with  his  Lares  and  Penates.     Of 


THE    RUSKIN    FAMILY.  1 5 

course  he  always  had  his  own  view  of  things,  his 
own  character  and  individuality,  from  the  first ; 
undisguised  interests  and  occupations  beyond  and 
beside  the  prescribed  rule  of  home  life ;  and  nat- 
urally, in  course  of  time,  this  graft  of  his  own 
personality  grew,  and  spread,  and  blossomed  into 
a  new  variety  of  the  species ;  but  always  on  the 
parent  stock.  He  built  him  the  "  more  stately 
mansion  "  that  the  poet  tells  of,  but  without  first 
dismantling  the  ancestral  home. 

And  yet  the  gradual  enlargement  of  his  ideas 
and  sphere  of  thought  involved  a  gradual  estrange- 
ment from  his  parents;  much  more  painful  than 
any  sudden  revolt,  because  then  they  would  have 
known,  so  to  speak,  the  worst,  and  some  sort  of 
reconciliation  on  a  new  basis  would  have  been 
possible.  As  it  was,  they  saw  —  or  thought  they 
saw,  for  they  could  not  tell  how  it  would  end  — 
their  work  being  gradually  undone,  their  cherished 
hopes  frustrated,  their  intentions  unfulfilled.  And 
all  their  pride  in  his  fame,  and  their  confidence  in 
his  dutiful  affection,  could  not  hide  the  fact  that, 
once  launched  on  his  life's  true  career,  he  had 
drifted  away  from  their  track,  out  of  their  sight, 
voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  thought,  alone. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    FATHER   OF   THE    MAN. 
(1819-1825.) 

"  While  yet  a  child,  and  long  before  his  time, 
Had  he  perceived  the  presence  and  the  power 
Of  greatness." 

Wordsworth. 

Into  this  family  John  Ruskin  was  born,  on  the 
8th  of  February,  1819. 

It  might  be,  if  we  had  fuller  information  about 
the  personages  of  history,  that  we  could  trace  in 
all  of  them  the  influences  of  heredity  and  early 
training  as  distinctly  and  as  completely  as  in  his 
case.  But  the  birth  and  breeding  of  most  writers 
and  artists  are,  in  essential  points,  comparatively 
undetailed.  We  have  anecdotes  about  them  ;  we 
hear  of  their  sudden  appearance,  their  struggles, 
their  adventures ;  but  we  cannot  trace  the  de- 
velopment, step  by  step,  of  their  genius.  We  see 
the  result ;  but  the  process  is  like  the  growth  of  a 
Jonah's  gourd,  something  that  seems  to  have 
sprung  up  in  the  darkness,  whence,  or  how,  we 
can  only  surmise.  And  so,  not  the  least  interest- 
ing fact  about  this  life  is  the  circumstantiality 
with  which  its  early  part  is  known.     We  have  not 


THE    FATHER    OF   THE    MAN.  I  7 

only  the  autobiography,  but  the  recollections  of 
friends,  and,  most  important  of  all,  the  actual 
relics  of  the  very  time,  in  old  letters  and  note- 
books and  documents,  by  which  the  child's  mental 
growth  can  be  traced,  year  by  year,  —  almost,  in 
many  periods,  day  by  day. 

We  see  what  he  owed  to  his  parents.  But  there 
are  three  sources  of  any  man's  personality,  —  he- 
redity, and  training,  and  that  private  and  particular 
individual  character  which,  however  explained,  is 
present  in  him  from  the  beginning  and  remains 
with  him  to  the  end,  binding  his  days  "  each  to 
each  in  natural  piety."  In  John  Ruskin  this  in- 
dividuality was  seen  at  an  earlier  stage  than  in 
most  children,  because  it  was  more  definite  and 
influential ;  and  it  goes  on  rapidly  but  steadily  de- 
veloping, recurring  continually  to  old  lines,  haunt- 
ing accustomed  scenes,  asserting  itself  in  one 
department  after  another  of  study  and  work ;  so 
that  the  story  of  his  life  cannot  rightly  be  given 
in  a  set  of  tableaux  vivants^  a  few  strong  situa- 
tions ;  the  whole  interest  of  it  lies  in  the  gradual 
unfolding  of  a  notable  character,  and  in  tracing 
from  its  germ  a  mind  which,  however  we  rate  it, 
has  assuredly  been  one  of  the  great  motive  forces 
of  the  modern  world. 

We  can  chronicle  no  comet  for  his  birth,  as 
they  do  for  some  —  not  greater  —  men  ;  but  this 
year  1819  was  prolific  in  characters  of  interest. 
We  may  remark  that  it  was  the  year  of  our  Queen 
Victoria;  and  among  literary  men  three  notables 


1 8         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF    JOHN    RUSKIN. 

—  Charles  Kingsley,  James  Russell  Lowell,  and 
Walt  Whitman.  Mr.  Ruskin,  who  has  his  mood 
of  playing  with  the  occult,  believing  at  times,  like 
so  many,  that  "  there  is  something  in  it,"  declares 
that  Saturn  presided  at  his  birth :  another  way  of 
saying  that  an  unfortunate  influence  seems  to 
have  predominated  over  his  life.  Weak  health, 
especially,  has  to  be  set  off  against  a  fair  share  of 
wealth  ;  a  certain  ill  luck  in  little  things  and  per- 
sonal aims  against  the  supreme  gift  of  genius. 
The  violent  reaction  of  a  too  sensitive  nervous 
system  discounts  his  keen  capacity  for  enjoyment; 
and  renown,  public  notice,  has  been  much  more 
trouble  to  him  than  it  was  ever  worth. 

But  while  his  "  line  of  luck  "  —  so  a  student  of 
palmistry  declares  —  is  broken,  both  at  the  head 
and  at  the  heart,  it  is  straight  for  his  early  years. 
His  character  showed  itself  fixed  from  an  early 
age,  but  his  destiny  at  first  seemed  to  be  a  happy 
one.  Few  notable  men  have  opened  their  career 
so  fortunately,  so  brilliantly. 

His  mother  "  devoted  him  to  God,"  and  herself 
to  him.  There  were  no  other  children  to  create 
division  of  interests ;  there  were  no  petty  cares  or 
sordid  struggles  for  life  and  social  standing-place. 
The  whole  of  her  was  at  his  disposal ;  and  the 
very  strength  and  sincerity  of  her  nature  taught 
her  to  guard  her  own  affection  with  a  show  of 
serene  severity,  which  to  gossips  appeared  almost 
too  Spartan.  There  is  a  story  told  as  against  her, 
that  when  her  baby  cried  to  handle  the  bright  tea- 


THE    FATHER    OF    THE    MAN.  1 9 

kettle,  she  forced  the  nurse  to  let  him  touch  it ; 
and  dismissed  him  screaming.  It  seems  that  she 
did  not  consider  her  child  as  a  toy,  but  as  a  trust ; 
to  be  taught  by  experience,  or,  when  that  failed, 
to  be  punished  into  obedience  and  into  some- 
thing like  her  own  self-control.  When  he  tumbled 
downstairs  she  whipped  him  that  he  might  learn 
to  be  careful ;  and  he  certainly  acquired  an  adroit- 
ness and  presence  of  mind  which  have  often 
surprised  his  companions  in  mountain-climbing. 
When  he  came  in  to  dessert  or  played  among  the 
fruit-trees,  she  drew  the  line  at  one  currant ;  and 
there  are  few  men  of  his  artistic  and  poetical  sort 
who  are  less  tempted  to  self-indulgence  in  any- 
thing. When  an  affectionate  aunt  sent  him  a 
gaudy  Punch  and  Judy,  they  were  put  away  and 
he  was  thrown  on  his  own  resources  for  amuse- 
ment. Another  child  would  have  wept,  perhaps, 
or  screamed,  to  attract  attention ;  but  he  invented 
games  with  his  bunch  of  keys,  his  cart,  and  ball, 
and  bricks ;  he  discovered  how  interesting  things 
are  if  you  look  at  them  enough,  —  patterns  on  car- 
pets, water-carts  filling  at  the  plug,  any  view  from 
any  window,  at  which  he  would  stare  till,  as  they 
put  it,  the  eyes  seemed  coming  out  of  his  head. 
From  this  training  came  a  habit  of  investigation, 
so  that  he  could  not  pass  a  scene  or  a  picture  as 
most  of  us  do,  lightly  and  carelessly ;  he  must  al- 
ways be  studying  it,  brooding  over  it,  and  think- 
ing about  its  plan  and  purpose  ;  which  when  writ- 
ten turned  out  to  be  the  imaginative  description  we 


20  THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

wonder  at,  the  eloquence  which  we  put  vaguely 
down  as  a  gift  or  a  style,  the  analytic  mind  of 
Ruskin. 

Though  he  was  born  in  the  thick  of  London  he 
was  not  city  bred.  His  love  for  landscape  was 
not  the  result  of  a  late  discovery  of  it,  and  of  an 
enthusiastic  contrast  of  wild  nature  with  streets 
and  squares,  as  it  has  been  in  some  cases.  He 
was  always  acquainted  with  country  life,  and  even 
mountains  were  familiar  to  his  childhood.  His 
first  three  summers  were  spent  in  lodgings  in 
what  was  then  rustic  Hampstead  or  Dulwich;  so 
early  as  his  fourth  summer  he  was  taken  to  Scot- 
land by  sea  to  stay  with  his  aunt  Jessie,  Mrs. 
Richardson  of  Perth.  There  he  found  cousins  to 
play  with,  especially  one  little  Jessie  of  nearly  his 
own  age ;  he  found  a  river  with  deep  swirling 
pools,  that  impressed  him  more  than  the  sea ;  and 
he  found  the  mountains.  Coming  home  in  the 
autumn  he  sat  for  his  full-length  portrait  to  James 
Northcote ;  and  being  asked  what  he  would  choose 
for  background  he  replied,  "  Blue  hills." 

Northcote  had  painted  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ruskin, 
and,  as  they  were  fond  of  artistic  company,  re- 
mained their  friend.  A  certain  friendship,  too, 
was  struck  up  between  the  old  Academician,  then 
in  his  seventy-seventh  year,  the  acknowledged 
cynic  and  satirist,  and  the  little  wise  boy  who 
asked  shrewd  questions  and  could  sit  still  to  be 
painted ;  who,  moreover,  had  a  face  worth  paint- 
ing, not  unlike  the  model  from  whom  Northcote's 


John  Ruskin  in  1822 


THE    FATHER    OF    THE    MAN.  21 

master,  the  great  Sir  Joshua,  had  painted  his 
famous  cherubs.  The  painter  asked  him  to  come 
again,  and  sit  as  the  hero  of  a  fancy  picture, 
bought  at  the  Academy  by  the  nattered  parents  ; 
relegated  since  to  the  out-house  at  Brantwood. 
There  is  a  grove ;  a  flock  of  toy  sheep ;  drapery  in 
the  grand  style ;  a  mahogany  Satyr  taking  a  thorn 
out  of  the  little  pink  foot  of  a  conventional  nudity, 
poor  caricatures  of  the  Titianesque.  But  the  head 
is  an  obvious  portrait,  and  a  happy  one  ;  far  more 
like  the  real  boy,  so  tradition  says,  than  the  gener- 
alized chubbiness  of  the  commissioned  picture. 

In  the  next  year  (1823)  they  quitted  the  town 
for  a  suburban  home.  The  spot  they  chose  was 
in  rural  Dulwich,  on  Heme  Hill,  a  long  offshoot 
of  the  Surrey  downs ;  low,  and  yet  commanding 
green  fields  and  trees  and  scattered  houses  in  the 
foreground,  with  rich  undulating  country  to  the 
south,  and  looking  across  London  toward  Windsor 
and  Harrow.  It  is  all  built  up  now;  but  their 
house  (the  present  No.  28)  must  have  been  as 
secluded  as  any  in  a  country  village  —  the  sub- 
urbs were,  of  course,  once  country  villages  —  and 
as  pleasant  in  its  old-fashioned  comfort.  There 
are  ample  gardens  front  and  rear,  well  stocked 
with  fruit  and  flowers ;  quite  an  Eden  for  a  little 
boy,  and  all  the  more  that  the  fruit  of  it  was  for- 
bidden. It  was  here  that  all  his  years  of  youth 
were  spent.  Here,  under  his  parents'  roof,  he 
wrote  his  earlier  works,  as  far  as  the  first  volume 
of  "  Modern  Painters."    To  this  house,  as  his  own 


22         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

separate  home,  he  returned  for  a  period  of  his 
middle  life ;  and  in  the  same  place,  handed  over 
to  his  adopted  daughter,  he  still  finds  his  own 
rooms  ready  when  he  cares  to  visit  London. 

So  he  was  brought  up  almost  as  a  country  boy, 
though  near  enough  to  town  to  get  the  benefit  of 
it,  and  far  enough  from  the  more  exciting  scenes 
of  landscape  nature  to  find  them  ever  fresh  when, 
summer  after  summer,  he  revisited  the  river 
scenery  of  the  west,  or  the  mountains  of  the  north. 
For  by  a  neat  arrangement,  and  one  fortunate  for 
the  boy's  education,  his  summer  tours  were  con- 
tinued yearly.  Mr.  John  James  Ruskin  still  trav- 
eled for  the  business,  then  greatly  extending; 
Mr.  Telford,  the  capitalist  partner,  meanwhile 
taking  the  vacant  chair  at  the  office  and  amiably 
lending  his  carriage  for  the  journeys.  There  was 
room  for  two ;  so  Mrs.  Ruskin  accompanied  her 
husband,  whose  indifferent  health  would  have 
given  her  constant  anxiety  during  long  separations. 
And  the  boy  could  easily  be  packed  in,  sitting  on 
his  little  portmanteau  and  playing  horses  with  his 
father's  knees ;  the  nurse  riding  on  the  dicky  be- 
hind. They  started  usually  after  the  great  family 
anniversary,  the  father's  birthday,  on  May  ioth, 
and  journeyed  by  easy  stages  through  the  south 
of  England,  working  up  the  west  to  the  north,  and 
then  home  by  the  east-central  route,  zigzagging 
from  one  provincial  town  to  another,  calling  at  the 
great  country-seats,  to  leave  no  customer  or  pos- 
sible customer  unvisited ;  and  in  the  intervals  of 


"  The  Thorn  in  the  Foot,"  1824 


HIP  • l  ^;- 

&|§k                    :>*'.r- 

i**^ 

-  fly    *&<£ 

THE    FATHER    OF    THE    MAN.  23 

business  seeing  all  the  sights  of  the  places  they 
passed  through  :  colleges  and  churches,  galleries 
and  parks,  ruins,  castles,  caves,  lakes  and  moun- 
tains ;  and  seeing  them  all,  not  listlessly,  but  with 
keen  interest;  noting  everything,  inquiring  for 
local  information,  looking  up  books  of  reference, 
setting  down  the  results,  as  if  they  had  been  mean- 
ing to  write  a  guide-book  and  gazetteer  of  Great 
Britain.  They,  I  say,  did  all  this,  for  as  soon  as  the 
boy  could  write  he  was  only  imitating  his  father 
in  keeping  his  little  journal  of  the  tours  ;  so  that 
all  he  learned  stayed  by  him,  and  the  habit  of  de- 
scriptive writing  was  formed. 

We  could  follow  out  the  tourists  in  detail,  if  it 
were  worth  while ;  in  the  chronology  at  the  end 
of  this  work  will  be  found  enough  to  identify  their 
whereabouts  at  different  dates,  which  is  sometimes 
useful  in  verifying  letters  and  drawings.  But  it 
must  suffice  here  to  notice  the  points  of  interest 
which  influenced  and  impressed  the  boy's  mind, 
and  left  a  mark  upon  his  work. 

In  1823  they  seem  to  have  traveled  only 
through  the  south  and  southwest;  in  1824  they 
pushed  north  to  the  lakes,  stayed  awhile  at  Kes- 
wick, and  while  the  father  went  about  his  busi- 
ness, the  child  was  rambling  with  his  nurse  on 
Friar's  Crag,  among  the  steep  rocks  and  gnarled 
roots  which  suggested,  even  at  that  age,  the  feel- 
ings expressed  in  one  of  the  notable  passages  in 
"  Modern  Painters."  Thence  they  went  on  to  Scot- 
land and   revisited  their  relatives  at   Perth.     In 


24  THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

1825  they  took  a  more  extended  tour,  and  spent  a 
few  weeks  in  Paris,  partly  for  the  festivities  after 
the  coronation  of  Charles  X.,  partly,  no  doubt,  for 
business  conferences  with  Mr.  Domecq,  who  had 
just  been  appointed  wine-merchant  to  the  King  of 
Spain.  Thence  they  went  to  Brussels  and  the 
field  of  Waterloo,  of  greater  interest  than  the 
sights  of  Paris  to  six-year-old  John,  who  often  dur- 
ing his  boyhood  celebrated  the  battle,  and  the 
heroes  of  the  battle,  in  verse. 

These  excitements  of  travel  alternated  with  the 
quietest  homekeeping,  employed  in  uneventful 
study,  not  stimulated  by  competition,  nor  sweet- 
ened by  any  of  those  educational  sugar-plums  with 
which  the  modern  child's  path  is  so  thickly  strewn. 
And  yet  his  lessons  were  followed  with  both 
steadiness  and  interest,  for  he  had  already  begun 
his  life's  work,  in  the  sense  that  his  later  writing 
and  teaching  are  demonstrably  continuous  with 
his  earliest  interests  and  efforts.  He  has  been 
laughed  at  for  seeing  in  a  copy  of  verses  written 
at  seven  the  germ  of  his  Political  Economy,  and 
what  not.  But  it  is  true  that  the  expressions  there 
used  are  expressions  of  the  very  same  feeling  and 
the  same  habits  of  thought  that  gradually  de- 
veloped into  the  theories  he  laid  before  the  world ; 
they  are  the  initial  segments  of  lines  which,  drawn 
boldly  out,  are  recognized  as  his  own  lines ;  and 
even  from  these  early  indications  we  now,  looking 
back,  can  see  the  man. 

Before  he  was  quite  three  he  climbed  up  into  a 


THE    FATHER    OF    THE    MAN.  25 

chair  —  the  chair  that  all  his  friends  have  seen 
him  sitting  in  of  evenings  —  and  preached.  There 
is  nothing  so  uncommon  in  that.  Of  Robert 
Browning,  his  neighbor  and  seven  years  older 
contemporary,  the  same  tale  is  told.  But  while  the 
incident  that  marks  the  baby  Browning  is  the 
aside,  —  apropos  of  a  whimpering  sister,  —  "  Pew- 
opener,  remove  that  child,"  the  baby  Ruskin  is 
seen  in  his  sermon :  "  People,  be  dood.  If  you 
are  dood,  Dod  will  love  you.  If  you  are  not  dood, 
Dod  will  not  love  you.  People,  be  dood."  That 
was  all ;  but  it  shows  that  he  never  was  exactly  an 
Evangelical. 

At  the  age  of  four  he  had  begun  to  read  and 
write,  refusing  to  be  taught  in  the  orthodox  way 
— :  this  is  so  accurately  characteristic  —  by  syllabic 
spelling  and  copybook  pothooks.  He  preferred 
to  find  out  a  method  for  himself,  as  he  always  did ; 
and  he  found  out  how  to  read  whole  words  at  a 
time  by  the  look  of  them,  and  to  write  in  vertical 
characters  like  book-print,  just  as  the  latest  im- 
proved theories  of  education  suggest.  When  once 
he  could  read,  thenceforward  his  mother  gave  him 
regular  morning  lessons  in  Bible-reading  and  in 
reciting  the  Scotch  paraphrases  of  the  Psalms  and 
other  verse,  which  for  his  good  memory  was  an 
easy  task.  He  made  rhymes  before  he  could 
write  them,  of  course. 

At  five  he  was  a  bookworm,  and  the  books  he 
read  at  once  fixed  him  in  certain  grooves  of 
thought ;  or  rather,  say  they  were  chosen  as  favor- 


26         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

ites  from  an  especial  interest  in  their  subjects,  an 
interest  which  arose  from  his  character  of  mind, 
and  displayed  it.  But  with  all  this  precocity  he 
was  no  milksop  nor  weakling.  He- was  a  bright, 
active  lad,  full  of  fun  and  pranks,  not  without 
occasional  companions,  though  solitary  then  at 
home,  and  kept  precisely,  guarded  from  every 
danger.  He  was  so  little  afraid  of  animals  —  a 
great  test  of  a  child's  nerves  —  that  about  this 
time  he  must  needs  meddle  with  their  fierce  New- 
foundland dog,  Lion,  which  bit  him  in  the  mouth 
and  spoiled  his  looks.  Another  time  he  showed 
some  address  in  extricating  himself  from  the  water- 
butt,  a  common  child-trap.  He  was  not  afraid 
of  ghosts  or  thunder;  instead  of  that,  his  early- 
developed  landscape  feeling  showed  itself  in  dread 
of  foxglove  dells  and  dark  pools  of  water,  —  as  in 
the  popular  Italian  dream  presage,  —  in  coiling 
roots  of  trees;  things  that  to  the  average  fancy 
have  no  significance  whatever. 

At  six,  he  began  to  imitate  the  books  he  was 
reading,  to  write  books  himself.  He  had  found 
out  how  to  print,  as  children  do  ;  and  it  was  his 
ambition  to  make  real  books,  with  title-pages  and 
illustrations  ;  not  only  books,  indeed,  but  series  of 
volumes,  a  complete  library  of  his  whole  works. 
About  these  there  are  two  prophetic  circum- 
stances, the  one  pointing  to  his  habit  of  bringing 
out  a  work  not  all  at  once,  but  in  successive  parts, 
at  intervals  perhaps  of  "  olympiads,"  as  he  once 
said ;  and  the  other,  to  his  unfortunate  tendency  to 


THE    FATHER    OF   THE    MAN.  2j 

find  himself  unable  to  complete  his  enterprises,  to 
let  one  subject  be  crowded  out  by  others,  and 
to  drop  it  in  the  forlorn  hope  of  resuming  it  at 
the  more  convenient  season  which  is  so  long  in 
coming;  so  that  there  is  hardly  a  title  of  his 
which  stands  before  a  properly  finished  work.  The 
"  Seven  Lamps  "  and  "  Stones  of  Venice  "  are  in- 
deed complete  in  themselves,  but  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers "  was  concluded  in  a  hurry,  quite  inadequately ; 
"  Fors  "  is  a  bundle  of  letters,  and  so  is  "  Time 
and  Tide ;  "  other  works  are  only  collections  of  lec- 
tures or  detached  essays :  of  hardly  any  can  it  be 
said  that  it  is  carried  out  according  to  a  studied 
programme. 

The  first  of  these  sets  was  imitated  in  style 
from  Miss  Edgeworth :  "  Harry  and  Lucy  con- 
cluded, or  Early  Lessons,"  —  didactic  he  was  from 
the  beginning.  It  was  to  be  in  four  volumes,  uni- 
form in  red  leather,  with  proper  title,  frontispiece, 
and  "  copperplates,"  —  "  printed  and  composed  by 
a  little  boy,  and  also  drawn."  It  was  begun  in  1826 
and  continued  at  intervals  until  1829.  It  was  all 
done  laboriously  in  imitation  of  print;  and,  to 
complete  the  illusion,  contained  a  page  of  errata, 
—  a  capital  touch  of  infantile  realism.  This  great 
work  was  of  course  never  completed,  though  he 
labored  through  three  volumes ;  but  when  he 
tired  of  it,  he  would  turn  his  book  upside  down 
and  begin  at  the  other  end  with  other  matters ;  so 
that  the  red  books  contain  all  sorts  of  notes  on 
his  minerals  and  travels,  reports  of  sermons  and 


28         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

miscellaneous  information,  besides  their  professed 
contents ;  in  this  respect  also  being  very  like  his 
later  works. 

The  fact  that  much  of  his  childish  writing  con- 
sisted of  accounts  of  summer  tours  gave  him  prac- 
tice in  description,  which  is  commonly  thought  to 
be  his  strong  point.  His  drawings  at  first  were 
made  to  illustrate  his  books ;  and  as  a  rule  in 
after  times  when  he  sketched,  it  was  usually  with 
the  same  object  in  view ;  hence,  not  only  his  own 
style,  but  a  tendency  in  all  his  criticism  to  look 
at  pictures  as  illustrations,  —  a  tendency  which 
was  shaken  off  only  in  his  later  period. 

For  his  travels  he  sometimes  planned  a  skeleton 
journal  beforehand,  and  noted  in  advance  the 
chief  sights,  that  nothing  might  be  missed.  After 
the  journey  he  filled  in  his  impressions :  architec- 
ture, scenery,  minerals  and  products,  engineering 
and  economy.  His  "  Harry  and  Lucy  "  is  mainly 
a  dramatized  account  of  tours ;  himself  being 
Harry,  with  an  imaginary  sister,  studied  from  Jessie 
of  Perth  or  Bridget  of  Croydon,  for  he  had  no- 
body then  to  act  permanently  in  that  capacity,  as 
his  cousin  Mary  did  afterwards.  The  moralizing 
mamma  and  literary  papa  represent  his  parents  to 
the  life.  Beside  the  tours  we  read  of  white  rab- 
bits and  silkworms,  air-pumps  and  fireworks ;  the 
scrapes  of  a  savant  in  pinafores  in  quest  of  gen- 
eral information,  from  hydraulics,  pneumatics, 
acoustics,  electricity,  astronomy,  mineralogy,  to 
boat-building,  engineering,  and  riddles.    Much,  of 


THE    FATHER   OF    THE    MAN.  29 

course,  is  ideal ;  as  where  Harry  —  anticipating, 
shall  we  say  ?  a  later  enterprise  at  Coniston  —  con- 
structs a  great  mud  globe,  "  and  when  his  mamma 
and  papa  saw  this,  whenever  they  were  at  a  loss 
for  the  situation  of  any  country,  they  went  to 
Harry's  globe  for  satisfaction  "  !  —  or  when  he  ex- 
perimented with  a  well-appointed  laboratory  for 
the  astonishment  of  Lucy.  But  the  description 
of  a  week  at  Hastings  in  the  spring  of  1826  is 
probably  a  bit  of  history,  and  told  with  lively 
artlessness. 

There  you  have  our  author  ready  made,  with 
his  ever  fresh  interest  in  everything,  and  all-at- 
tempting eagerness.  Out  of  which  the  first  thing 
that  crystallizes  into  any  definite  shape  is  the 
verse-writing. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PERFERVIDUM    INGENIUM. 

(1826-1830.) 

"  Apres,  en  tel  train  d'estude   le  mist  qu'il  ne  perdoit    heures  quel- 
conques  du  jour  :  ainsi  tout  son  temps  consommoit  en  lettres." 

Gargantua. 

The  first  dated  "  poem  "  was  written  a  month 
before  little  John  Ruskin  reached  the  age  of 
seven.  It  is  a  tale  of  a  mouse,  in  seven  octosyl- 
labic couplets,  "  The  Needless  Alarm,"  remark- 
able only  for  an  unexpected  correctness  in  rhyme, 
rhythm,  and  reason. 

His  early  verse,  like  his  early  prose,  owes  much 
to  the  summer  tours  ;  it  was  from  the  practice 
they  gave  that  he  became  a  descriptive  writer. 
The  journey  to  Scotland  of  1826  suggested  two 
poems,  of  which  one  is  really  interesting  for  its 
sustained  sequence  of  thought,  —  the  last  thing 
you  ask  from  a  child.  And  the  final  stanza  has  a 
ring  of  wild  imagery  of  the  infinite,  like  Blake's 
best  touches :  — 

"  The  pole-star  guides  thee  on  thy  way, 
When  in  dark  nights  thou  art  lost ; 
Therefore  look  up  at  the  starry  day, 
Look  at  the  stars  about  thee  tost." 

But  these  are  only  the  more  complete  bits  among 


PERFERVIDUM    INGENIUM.  3 1 

a  quantity  of  fragments.  These  summer  tours 
were  prolific  in  notes;  everything  was  observed 
and  turned  into  verse.  And  the  habit  lasted ;  and 
grew  into  the  poetical  journals  of  Ruskin's  boy- 
hood, and  the  ample  diaries  and  notebooks  of 
later  years,  which  supplied  the  materials  for  his 
great  works. 

The  other  inspiring  source  during  this  period 
of  versification  was  nis  father,  —  the  household 
deity  of  both  wife  and  child,  whose  chief  delight 
was  in  his  daily  return  from  the  city,  and  in  his 
reading  to  them  in  the  drawing-room  at  Heme 
Hill.  John  was  packed  into  a  recess,  where  he 
was  out  of  the  way  and  the  draught ;  he  was  bar- 
ricaded by  a  little  table  that  held  his  own  ma- 
terials for  amusement;  and  if  he  liked  to  listen  to 
the  reading,  he  had  the  chance  of  hearing  good 
literature ;  the  chance  sometimes  of  hearing  pas- 
sages from  Byron  and  Christopher  North  and 
Cervantes,  rather  beyond  his  comprehension.  For 
his  parents  were  not  of  the  shockable  sort ;  with 
all  their  religion  and  strict  Scotch  morality  they 
could  laugh  at  a  broad  jest,  as  old-fashioned  peo- 
ple could.  And  it  did  the  child  less  harm  to  hear 
an  occasional  coarse  expression  among  the  sound 
judgments  and  great  thoughts  of  fine  literature, 
than  it  would  have  done  to  have  been  accustomed 
from  the  first  to  the  namby-pamby  and  the  shallow 
twaddle  of  the  modern  schoolroom  shelf. 

So  he  associated  his  father  and  his  father's 
readings  with  the  poetry  of  reflection,  as  he  as- 


32  THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

sociated  the  regular  summer  round  with  the  poe- 
try of  description ;  the  two  manners  were  like 
two  rivulets  of  verse  flowing  through  his  life ;  oc- 
casionally intermingling,  but  in  their  main  chan- 
nels and  directions  kept  distinct.  As  every  sum- 
mer brought  its  crop  of  description,  so  against  the 
New  Year  (for  being  Scotch,  they  did  not  then 
keep  our  Christmas)  and  against  his  father's  birth- 
day in  May,  he  used  always  to  prepare  some  little 
drama  or  story  or  "  address  "  of  a  reflective  nature. 
The  first  of  these,  on  "  Time,"  written  for  New 
Year's  Day,  1827,  has  perhaps  received  more  no- 
tice than  was  needed. 

In  1827  they  were  again  at  Perth  ;  and  on  their 
way  home,  some  early  morning  frost  suggested 
the  not  ungraceful  verses  on  the  icicles  at  Glen- 
farg.  By  a  childish  misconception  the  little  boy 
seems  to  have  confused  the  real  valley  that  in- 
terested him  so,  with  Scott's  ideal  Glendearg ; 
and,  partly  for  that  reason,  to  have  taken  a  greater 
pleasure  in  "  The  Monastery ;  "  which  he  there- 
upon undertook  to  paraphrase  in  verse.  There 
remain  some  hundreds  of  doggerel  rhymes ;  but 
his  affection  for  that  particular  novel  survived 
the  fatal  facility  of  his  octosyllabics,  and  reap- 
pears time  after  time  in  his  later  writings.  It  is 
a  little  curious  that  Scott's  immediate  critics 
thought  "  The  Monastery "  a  failure,  while  Rus- 
kin,  who  has  done  more  than  any  one  to  perpet- 
uate the  worship  of  Sir  Walter,  counts  it  his  most 
characteristic  work. 


PERFERVIDUM    INGENIUM.  33 

Next  year,  1828,  their  tour  was  stopped  at  Plym- 
outh by  the  unwelcome  news  of  the  death  of  his 
aunt  Jessie,  to  whom  they  were  on  their  way.  It 
was  hardly  a  year  since  the  bright  little  cousin 
Jessie  of  Perth  had  died,  of  water  on  the  brain. 
She  had  been  John's  especial  pet  and  playfellow, 
clever  like  him,  and  precocious ;  and  her  death 
must  have  come  to  his  parents  as  a  warning,  if 
they  needed  it,  to  keep  their  own  child's  brain 
from  over-pressure.  It  is  evident  that  they  did 
their  best  to  "  keep  him  back  ;  "  they  did  not  send 
him  to  school,  for  fear  of  the  excitement  of  com- 
petitive study.  His  mother  put  him  through  the 
Latin  grammar  herself,  using  the  old  Adam's 
Manual  which  his  father  had  used  at  Edinburgh 
high  school.  She  had  the  secret  of  engaging  his 
interest  in  her  lessons,  without  using  any  of  those 
adventitious  means  which  teachers  nowadays  rec- 
ommend. Even  this  old  grammar  became  a  sort 
of  sacred  book  to  him  ;  and  when  at  last  he  went 
to  school,  and  his  English  master  threw  the  book 
back  to  him,  saying,  "  That  's  a  Scotch  thing,"  the 
boy  was  shocked  and  affronted,  as  which  of  us 
would  be  at  a  criticism  on  our  first  instrument 
of  torture  ?  He  remembered  the  incident  all  his 
life,  and  pilloried  the  want  of  tact  —  it  was  no 
more  —  with  acerbity  in  his  reminiscences. 

They  could  keep  him  from  school,  but  they 
did  not  keep  him  from  study.  The  year  1828 
saw  the  beginning  of  another  great  work,  — 
"  Eudosia,   a    Poem   on   the    Universe ; "   it  was 


34         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

"  printed  "  with  even  greater  neatness  and  labor ; 
but  this  too,  after  being  toiled  at  during  the  win- 
ter months,  was  dropped  in  the  middle  of  its 
second  "  book."  It  was  not  idleness  that  made 
him  break  off  such  plans,  but  just  the  reverse,  — 
a  too  great  activity  of  brain.  His  parents  seem 
to  have  thought  that  there  was  no  harm  in  this 
desultory  and  apparently  quiet  reading  and  writ- 
ing. They  were  extremely  energetic  themselves, 
and  hated  idleness.  They  seem  to  have  held  a 
theory  that  their  little  boy  was  all  right  as  long 
as  he  was  not  obviously  excited,  and  to  have 
thought  that  the  proper  way  of  giving  children 
pocket-money  was  to  let  them  earn  it.  So  they 
used  to  pay  him  for  his  literary  labors.  "  Homer" 
was  is.  a  page,  "  Composition  "  id.  for  20  lines, 
"  Mineralogy  "  id.  an  article.  And  the  result  of  it 
all  is  described  in  a  chapter  of  "  Harry  and  Lucy," 
written  at  the  end  of  1828. 

"  After  Harry  had  learned  his  lessons  he  went 
to  a  poem  that  he  was  composing  for  his  father 
on  New  Year's  Day,  as  he  always  presented  his 
father  with  a  poem  at  that  period.  The  subject 
of  it  was  a  battle  between  the  Pretender,  or 
1  Chevalier '  as  Harry  would  have  him  called, 
and  the  forces,  or  part  of  the  forces,  of  George  II. 
All  the  poems  that  he  had  hitherto  presented  to 
his  father  were  printed  in  what  Harry  called 
single  letters,  thus — n  or  m;  but  Harry  printed 
this  double  print,  in  this  manner  —  m ;  and  it  was 
most  beautifully  done,  you  may  be  sure.  It  was 
irregular  measure. 


PERFERVIDUM    INGENIUM.  35 

"  Harry,  when  he  had  done  what  he  thought 
a  moderate  allowance  of  his  poem,  went  to  his 
map.  But  scarcely  had  the  pen  touched  the 
paper  when  in  came  dinner.  However,  that  hin- 
drance was  soon  over,  and  Harry  returned  to  his 
map.  Harry  to-day  nearly  finished  it;  and  after 
having  had  some  '  Don  Quixote,'  he  went  to  bed. 

"  But  as,  whenever  the  world  was  left  '  to  dark- 
ness and  to  me,'  a  bright  thought  came  into 
Harry's  mind,  he  thought  that  if  he  could  contrive 
to  make  a  Punch's  show,  or  rather  Fantoccini,  out 
of  paper,  he  could  exhibit  it  when  he  presented 
his  poem,  and  please  his  father  a  little  more.  So 
he  fell  to  work  to  invent  or  plan  one.  First,  he 
settled  the  size,  which  was  to  be  about  five  inches 
long,  two  broad,  and  two  sideways.  The  top, 
where  the  figures  were  to  act,  was  to  be  two 
inches  square. 

"  This  settled,  Harry  began  to  think  how  he 
should  make  it.  This  was  rather  difficult.  Harry 
first  thought  what  shape  the  piece  of  paper  must 
be,  before  it  was  put  together  so  as  to  form  the 
show.  [Follows  a  description  with  diagrams, 
elaborate  and  correct,  of  a  marionette  -  theatre, 
reduced  to  lowest  terms,  with  pasteboard  figures 
worked  from  below  with  sticks.] 

"  Harry,  being  now  quite  satisfied  with  his  plan, 
fell  asleep.  .  .  .  And  in  the  morning  .  .  .  alas ! 
he  was,  to  use  his  own  words,  in  a  hugeous  hurry ! 
Four  days,  and  he  would  be  entering  upon  an- 
other year !     How  was  he  to  get  a  poem  finished 


36         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

consisting  of  eighty-nine  lines,  —  finished  in  that 
style  of  printing,  with  the  show  ?  It  was  alto- 
gether impossible.  So  Harry  put  off  the  show 
till  his  father's  birthday." 

This  was  the  end  of  that  long-continued  epi- 
sode ;  for  he  had  now  found  a  real  Lucy,  and  the 
ideal  vanished.  The  death  of  his  aunt  Jessie 
left  a  large  family  of  boys  and  one  girl  to  the 
care  of  their  widowed  father;  and  the  Ruskins 
felt  it  their  duty  to  help.  They  fetched  Mary 
Richardson  away,  and  brought  her  up  as  a  sister 
to  their  solitary  son.  She  was  not  so  beloved  as 
Jessie  had  been,  but  a  good  girl  and  a  nice  girl, 
four  years  older  than  John,  and  able  to  be  a  com- 
panion to  him  in  his  lessons  and  travels.  There 
was  no  sentimentality  about  his  attachment  to  her, 
but  a  steady  fraternal  relationship ;  he,  of  course, 
being  the  little  lord  and  master,  but  she  was  not 
without  spirit  which  enabled  her  to  hold  her  own, 
and  perseverance  which  sometimes  helped  her  to 
eclipse,  for  the  moment,  his  brilliancy.  They 
learned  together,  wrote  their  journals  together,  and 
shared  alike  with  the  scrupulous  fairness  which 
Mrs.  Ruskin's  sensible  nature  felt  called  on  to 
show.  And  so  she  remained  his  sister,  and  not 
quite  his  sister,  until  she  married,  and  after  a 
very  short  married  life  died. 

Another  accession  to  the  family  took  place  in 
the  same  year  (1828):  the  Croydon  aunt,  too,  had 
died,  and  left  a  dear  dog,  Dash,  a  brown  and 
white  spaniel,  which  at  first  refused  to  leave  her 


PERFERVIDUM    INGENIUM.  37 

coffin,  but  was  coaxed  away,  and  found  a  happy 
home  at  Heme  Hill,  and  frequent  celebration  in 
his  young  master's  verses.  So  the  family  was 
now  complete,  —  papa  and  mamma,  Mary  and 
John,  and  Dash.  One  other  figure  must  not  be 
forgotten,  —  nurse  Anne,  who  had  come  from 
the  Edinburgh  home,  and  remained  always  with 
them,  John's  nurse  and  then  Mrs.  Ruskin's  at- 
tendant, as  devoted  and  as  censorious  as  any  old- 
style  Scotch  servant  in  a  story-book. 

The  year  1829  marked  an  advance  in  poetical 
composition.  For  his  father's  birthday  John  did 
something  better  than  the  "  show,"  —  a  book  more 
elaborate  than  any,  sixteen  pages  in  a  red  cover, 
with  a  title  -  page  quite  like  print :  "  Battle  of 
Waterloo  |  a  play  |  in  two  acts  |  with  other  small 
I  Poems  I  dedicated  to  his  father  |  by  John  Rus- 
kin  I  1829  I  Hernhill  (sic)  |  Dulwich."  The  play, 
modeled  on  a  Shakespeare  history,  shows  Wel- 
lington with  his  generals,  and  Bonaparte  with  his 
guards,  mouthing  "  prave  'orts  "  like  Prince  Harry 
and  Pistol.  There  is  a  Shakespearean  chorus,  bid- 
ding you  imagine  the  fight ;  and  in  the  next  act 
the  arrival  of  Blucher  is  dramatized,  and  Louis 
XVIII.  with  the  Duchess  of  Angouleme  praying 
for  the  issue.  Then  we  have  Bonaparte  solilo- 
quizing on  the  deck  of  the  Bellerophon ;  with  the 
chorus  at  the  end  describing  the  triumphal  pro- 
cession in  London. 

To  this  are  appended,  among  other  pieces,  fair 
copies  of  the  May,  and  Skiddaw,  and  Derwent- 


38         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

water,  printed  in  his  collected  Poems  from  a  pre- 
vious copy.  There  is  something  very  Ruskinian 
in  the  thought,  —  when  comparing  Skiddaw  with 
the  Pyramids,  — 

"  All  that  art  can  do 
Is  nothing  beside  thee.     The  touch  of  man 
Raised  pigmy  mountains,  but  gigantic  tombs. 
The  touch  of  nature  raised  the  mountain's  brow, 
But  made  no  tombs  at  all." 

Right  or  wrong,  that  has  always  been  his  leading 
motive,  the  normal  beneficence  of  Nature ;  and 
no  wonder,  for  Nature,  as  he  knew  her,  was  very 
kind  to  him  in  those  glorious  early  years  of  home 
love  and  summer  excursions  into  wonderland. 

An  illness  of  his  postponed  their  tour  for  1829 
until  it  was  too  late  for  more  than  a  little  journey 
in  Kent.  Mr.  Ruskin  has  referred  his  earliest 
sketching  to  this  occasion,  but  it  seems  likely  that 
the  drawings  attributed  to  this  year  were  done  in 
1 83 1.  He  was,  however,  busy  writing  poetry ;  at 
Tunbridge,  for  example,  he  wrote  that  fragment 
"  On  Happiness  "  which  catches  so  cleverly  the 
tones  of  Young,  —  a  writer  whose  orthodox  moral- 
izing suited  with  the  creed  in  which  John  Ruskin 
was  brought  up,  alternately,  be  it  remembered, 
with  "  Don  Quixote." 

Coming  home,  he  began  a  new  edition  of  his 
verses,  on  a  more  pretentious  scale  than  the  old 
red  books ;  in  a  fine,  really  bound  volume,  ex- 
quisitely "  printed,"  with  the  poems  dated.  The 
fair  copying  seems  to  have  been  quite  as  im- 
portant to  him  as  the  composition ;  and  it  laid  the 


PERFERVIDUM    INGENIUM.  39 

foundation  of  his  interest  in  calligraphy  generally, 
and  missals  in  particular. 

An  enormous  quantity  of  verse  follows  here,  of 
which  only  samples  have  seen  the  light.  The 
"  poems  "  are  curious  from  their  great  variety  of 
style  and  subject,  grave  and  gay  ;  but  —  as  might 
hardly  be  suspected  —  the  violent-heroic  predomi- 
nates. There  was  a  strong  touch  of  Celtic  bravura 
in  little  John's  character ;  he  liked  to  be  dressed 
as  a  soldier,  and  lived  in  imagination  much  among 
warriors.  And  down  to  his  later  years,  though 
nobody  has  so  energetically  denounced  the  waste 
and  the  cruelty  and  the  folly  of  war,  yet  nobody 
has  dwelt  so  lovingly  on  the  virtues  that  war 
brings  out  in  noble  natures,  and  on  the  dignities 
of  a  knight's  faith.  "  'T  is  vice,"  he  says  in  one  of 
the  poems  of  this  time,  "  't  is  vice,  not  war,  that  is 
the  curse  of  man." 

He  was  now  growing  out  of  his  mother's  tutor- 
ship ;  and  in  this  last  autumn  he  was  put  under 
the  care  of  Dr.  Andrews  for  his  Latin.  He  re- 
lates the  introduction  in  "  Prasterita,"  and  more 
circumstantially  in  a  letter  of  the  time  to  Mrs. 
Monro,  the  mother  of  his  charming  Mrs.  Richard 
Gray,  the  indulgent  neighbor  who  used  to  pamper 
the  little  gourmand  with  delicacies  unknown  in 
severe  Mrs.  Ruskin's  dining-room.  He  says  in  the 
letter  (this  is  at  ten  years  old) :  "  Well,  papa,  see- 
ing how  fond  I  was  of  the  Doctor,  and  knowing 
him  to  be  an  excellent  Latin  scholar,  got  him  for 
me  as  a  tutor ;  and  every  lesson  I  get  I  like  him 
better  and  better,  for  he  makes  me  laugh  '  almost, 


40         THE    LIFE   AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

if  not  quite,'  to  use  one  of  his  own  expressions, 
the  whole  time.  He  is  so  funny,  comparing  Nep- 
tune's lifting  up  the  wrecked  ships  of  ^Eneas  with 
his  trident  to  my  lifting  up  a  potato  with  a  fork,  or 
taking  a  piece  of  bread  out  of  a  bowl  of  milk  with 
a  spoon !  And  as  he  is  always  saying  [things] 
of  that  kind,  or  relating  some  droll  anecdote,  or 
explaining  the  part  of  Virgil  (the  book  which  I 
am  in)  very  nicely,  I  am  always  delighted  when 
Mondays,  Wednesdays,  and  Fridays  are  come." 

"Praeterita"  hardly  does  justice  to  the  "dear 
Doctor,"  who  was  not  only  "  an  excellent  Latin 
scholar  "  and  a  genial  teacher,  but  distinguished 
as  a  humanity  student  in  his  university  of  Glas- 
gow. But,  alas  for  school  distinctions  and  honors 
by  examination!  In  the  perspective  of  history 
such  accidents,  by  some  law  of  evanescence,  dis- 
appear; and  the  personality  of  the  man  alone  re- 
mains, emphasized  and  explained  by  the  relation- 
ship in  which  he  stands  to  a  pair  of  charming 
figures.  Mrs.  Ruskin,  who  let  none  but  pretty 
girls  come  to  her  house,  welcomed  the  Doctor's 
daughters;  one,  who  wrote  verses  in  John's  note- 
book, and  sang  "  Tambourgi,"  still  lives  in  Bed- 
ford Park ;  the  other  lives  in  Mr.  Coventry  Pat- 
more 's  "  Angel  in  the  House."  When  Mr.  Ruskin, 
thirty  years  later,  wrote  of  that  doubtfully  received 
poem  that  it  was  "  the  sweetest  analysis  we  pos- 
sess of  quiet  modern  domestic  feeling,"  few  of 
his  readers  could  have  known  all  the  grounds  of 
his  appreciation,  or  suspected  the  weight  of  mean- 
ing in  the  words. 


PERFERVIDUM    INGENIUM.  4 1 

Dr.  Andrews's  lessons  did  not  interfere  with  the 
private  book  writing  and  mineralogy,  during  this 
winter  of  1829-30.  Perhaps  it  was  the  influence 
of  the  "  long  roll  "  of  the  Virgilian  hexameter  that 
infused  a  greater  sonority  into  the  verses  of  this 
period,  and  gave  a  greater  rhetorical  roundness  to 
their  lines.  For  mere  literary  study  there  is  sound 
work  in  this  kind  of  thing :  — 

"  Meantime,  the  mourning  victors  bore 
Their  Nelson  to  his  native  shore  ; 
And  a  whole  weeping  nation  gave 
Funereal  honors  to  the  brave  ;  " 

and  everywhere  in  the  MS.  of  1830  we  see  the 
same  new  impulse  towards  alliteration  and  far- 
sought  phrasing,  —  two  tricks  of  Virgil's  that  Rus- 
kin  has  never  unlearned.  A  little  pedantry  is 
natural  in  a  boy  who  liked  his  schooling ;  but  you 
can  hardly  call  the  lad  a  "  prig."  A  prig  has  been 
happily  defined  as  an  animal  overfed  for  its  size. 
John  Ruskin  was  just  the  opposite.  He  was 
starved,  intellectually,  or  at  all  events  kept  on 
short  diet,  for  fear  of  the  results  of  mental  surfeit. 
His  omnivorous  appetite  was  like  that  of  a  young 
Gargantua,  not  like  the  fairy  changelings  who  eat 
and  eat  and  never  grow.  His  "  good  digestion 
turned  all  to  health,"  and  he  soon  became  an 
enfant  terrible  on  the  hands  of  his  pastors  and 
masters,  something  much  bigger  than  they  had 
meant  to  breed,  and  ready,  like  a  fairy-tale  hero, 
for  the  roughest  exchange  of  hugs  and  buffets  in 
the  wrestling  ring  of  the  literary  world. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP. 
(1830-1835.) 

"  The  North  and  Nature  taught  me  to  adore 
Your  scenes  sublime,  from  those  beloved  before." 

Byron. 

Critics  who  are  least  disposed  to  give  Mr. 
Ruskin  credit  for  his  artistic  doctrines  or  econom- 
ical theories  unite  in  allowing  that  he  has  taught 
us  to  look  at  Nature ;  and  especially  at  the  sub- 
lime in  Nature,  at  storms  and  sunrises,  and  the 
forests  and  snows  of  the  Alps.  Not  that  such 
things  were  unknown  to  others,  but  that  he  has 
most  impressively  united  the  merely  poetical  sen- 
timent of  their  grandeur  with  something  of  a 
scientific  curiosity  as  to  their  details  and  condi- 
tions; he  has  brought  us  to  linger  among  the 
mountains,  and  to  love  them.  And  as  a  man 
rarely  convinces  unless  he  is  convinced,  so  Rus- 
kin's  mission  of  mountain-worship  has  been  the 
outcome  of  a  passion  beside  which  the  other  in- 
terests and  occupations  of  his  youth  were  only 
toys.  He  could  take  up  his  mineralogy  and  his 
moralizing,  and  lay  them  down ;  but  the  love  of 
mountain  scenery  was  something  beyond  his  con- 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  43 

trol.  We  have  seen  him  leave  his  heart  in  the 
Highlands  at  three  years  old;  we  have  now  to 
follow  his  passionate  pilgrimages  to  Skiddaw  and 
Snowdon,  to  the  Jungfrau  and  Mont  Blanc. 

The  summer  tour  of  1830  is  important  as  the 
first  of  which  he  has  left  his  impressions  com- 
pletely recorded.  Earlier  than  that  there  are 
rhapsodic  fragments  about  Ben  Lomond  and  the 
hill  of  Kinnoul,  about  the  Lakes  and  North 
Wales ;  but  now  he  began  to  treat  the  scenery  as 
a  subject  of  art,  and  to  develop  his  journals  con- 
sciously into  poems. 

They  had  planned  a  great  tour  through  the 
Lakes  and  the  North  two  years  before,  but  were 
stopped  at  Plymouth  by  the  news  of  Mrs.  Rich- 
ardson's death.  This  time  the  same*  plan  was 
carried  out.  A  prose  diary  was  written  alter- 
nately by  John  and  Mary,  one  carrying  it  on  when 
the  other  tired,  with  rather  curious  effect  of  un- 
equally yoked  collaboration.  We  read  how  they 
"  set  off  from  London  at  seven  o'clock  on  Tues- 
day morning,  the  18th  of  May,"  and  thenceforward 
we  are  spared  no  detail :  the  furniture  of  the  inns, 
the  bills  of  fare ;  when  they  got  out  of  the  carriage 
and  walked ;  how  they  lost  their  luggage ;  what 
they  thought  of  colleges  and  chapels,  music  and 
May  races  at  Oxford,  of  Shakespeare's  tomb,  and 
the  pin-factory  at  Birmingham  ;  we  have  a  com- 
plete guide-book  to  Blenheim  and  Warwick 
Castle,  to  Haddon  and  Chatsworth,  and  the  full 
itinerary   of    Derbyshire.      "  Matlock    Bath,"   we 


44         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

read,  "  is  a  most  delightful  place ; "  but  after  an 
enthusiastic  description  of  High  Tor,  John  reacts 
into  bathos  with  a  minute  description  of  how  they 
wetted  their  shoes  in  a  puddle.  The  cavern  with 
a  Bengal  light  was  fairyland  to  him,  and  among 
the  minerals  he  was  quite  at  home. 

Everything  was  interesting  on  these  journeys, 
everything  was  noteworthy;  and  the  excitement 
was  certainly  kept  up  at  a  high  pitch.  Sightseeing 
by  day  was  not  enough :  John  must  get  out  his 
book  after  supper  in  the  evening  at  the  hotel,  and 
write  poems ;  when  he  had  written  up  his  journal 
he  went  on  with  some  subject  totally  unconnected 
with  his  travels  or  the  place  he  was  in.  For  in- 
stance, after  seeing  Haddon,  that  very  night  he 
finished  a  gruesome  account  of  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment !  This  power  of  detaching  himself  from 
surroundings  and  fixing  his  mind  on  any  business 
in  hand  has  always  been  one  of  his  most  curious 
and  most  enviable  gifts.  How  few  writers  could 
correct  proofs  at  Sestri  and  write  political  economy 
at  Chamouni !  After  spending  the  morning  in 
drawing  early  Gothic,  and  the  afternoon  driving  to 
some  historic  site,  with  a  sketch  of  sunset  perhaps, 
he  could  settle  down  in  his  hotel  bedroom  and 
write  a  preface  to  an  old  work ;  and  next  morning 
be' up  before  the  sun,  busy  at  a  chapter  of  "  Fors  " 
or  "  Praeterita."  It  is  this  "  ohne  Hast,  ohne  Rast  " 
that  has  enabled  him  to  do  so  much  and  so  varied 
work ;  the  power  is  the  result  of  a  habit,  and  the 
habit  was  formed  from  the  beginning. 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  45 

To  resume  the  tour.  "  Manchester  is  a  most 
disagreeable  town,"  but  at  Liverpool  they  were  de- 
lighted with  the  river,  assisted  at  a  trifling  colli- 
sion, and  got  caught  in  the  old  dock  gates ;  on 
which  adventure  John  bursts  into  ballad  rhyme. 
Then  they  hurried  north  to  Windermere.  Once 
at  Lowwood,  the  excitement  thickens,  with  storms 
and  rainbows,  mountains  and  waterfalls,  boats  on 
the  lake  and  coaching  on  the  steep  roads.  This 
journey  through  Lakeland  is  described  in  the 
galloping  anapaests  of  the  "  Iteriad,"  which  was 
simply  the  prose  journal  versified  on  his  return,  — 
one  of  the  few  enterprises  of  the  sort  which  were 
really  completed. 

To  readers  who  know  the  country  it  is  interest- 
ing as  giving  a  detailed  account  of  it  sixty  years 
ago,  in  the  days  of  the  old  regime,  when  this  "  nook 
of  English  ground"  was  "secure  from  rash  as- 
sault." One  learns  that,  even  then,  there  were 
jarring  sights  at  Bowness  Bay  and  along  Derwent- 
water  shore,  elements  unkind  and  bills  exorbitant ; 
Coniston  especially  was  dreary  with  rain,  and  its 
inn  extravagantly  dear ;  "  but,"  says  John,  with  his 
eye  for  mineral  specimens,  "it  contains  several 
rich  copper  mines."  An  interesting  touch  is  the 
hero-worship  with  which  they  went  reverently  to 
peep  at  Southey  and  Wordsworth  in  church ;  too 
humble  to  dream  of  an  introduction,  and  too  polite 
to  besiege  the  poets  in  their  homes,  but  indepen- 
dent enough  to  form  their  own  opinions  on  the  per- 
sonality of  the  heroes.  They  did  not  like  the  look 
of  Wordsworth,  at  all. 


46         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

The  dominant  note  of  the  tour  is,  however,  an 
ecstatic  delight  in  the  mountain  scenery ;  on  Skid- 
daw  and  Helvellyn  all  the  gamut  of  admiration  is 
lavished.  Reluctantly  leaving  the  wilder  country, 
they  returned  to  Derbyshire;  and  meeting  a  friend 
to  whom  it  was  new,  they  revisited  everything 
with  revived  pleasure.  They  did  not  seem  to 
know  what  it  was  to  be  bored.  The  whole  tour 
was  a  triumphal  progress,  or  a  march  of  conquest. 

On  returning  home,  John  began  Greek  under 
Dr.  Andrews,  and  was  soon  versifying  Anacreon 
in  his  notebooks.  He  began  to  read  Byron  for 
himself,  with  what  result  we  shall  see  before  long. 
But  the  most  important  new  departure  was  the 
attempt  to  copy  Cruikshank's  etchings  to  Grimm's 
Fairy-tales,  his  real  beginning  at  art.  From  this 
practice  he  learned  the  value  of  the  line,  the  pure, 
clean  line  that  expresses  form.  It  is  a  good  in- 
stance of  the  authority  of  these  early  years  over 
Mr.  Ruskin's  whole  life  and  teaching,  that  in  his 
"  Elements  of  Drawing  "  he  advises  young  artists 
to  begin  with  Cruikshank,  as  he  began  ;  and  wrote 
appreciatively  both  of  the  stories  and  the  etchings 
so  many  decades  afterwards,  in  the  preface  to  a 
reprint  by  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus. 

His  cousin-sister  Mary  had  been  sent  to  a  day- 
school,  when  Mrs.  Ruskin's  lessons  were  super- 
seded by  Dr.  Andrews ;  and  she  had  learned 
enough  drawing  to  attempt  a  view  of  the  hotel 
at  Matlock,  —  a  thing  which  John  could  not  do. 
So,  now  that  he,  too,  showed  some  power  of  neat 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  47 

draughtsmanship,  it  was  felt  that  he  ought  to  have 
her  advantages.  They  got  Mr.  Runciman,  the 
drawing-master,  to  give  him  lessons,  in  the  early- 
part  of  1 83 1.  His  teaching  was  of  the  kind  which 
preceded  the  Hardingesque :  it  aimed  at  a  bold 
use  of  the  soft  pencil,  with  a  certain  roundness  of 
composition  and  richness  of  texture,  a  conven- 
tional "  right  way  "  of  drawing  anything.  This 
was  not  what  John  wanted ;  but,  not  to  be  beaten, 
he  facsimiled  the  master's  freehand  by  a  sort  of 
engraver's  stipple,  which  his  habitual  neatness 
helped  him  to  do  to  perfection.  Mr.  Runciman 
soon  put  a  stop  to  that,  and  took  pains  with  a 
pupil  who  took  such  pains  with  himself ;  taught 
him,  at  any  rate,  the  principles  of  perspective,  and 
remained  his  only  drawing-master  for  many  years. 
Now  he  could  rival  Mary  when  they  went  for 
their  summer  excursion.  He  set  to  work  at  once 
at  Sevenoaks  to  draw  cottages ;  at  Dover  and 
Battle  he  attempted  castles.  It  may  be  that 
these  first  sketches  are  of  the  pre  -  Runciman 
period  ;  but  the  Ruskins  made  the  round  of  Kent 
in  1 83 1,  and  though  the  drawings  are  by  no 
means  in  the  master's  style,  they  show  some  prac- 
tice in  using  the  pencil.  From  the  first  John 
Ruskin  cared  more  to  carry  away  a  true  record  of 
his  subject  than  to  produce  a  pleasing  picture ;  he 
is  even  diagrammatic  in  this  early  stage,  lettering 
his  architecture  with  references  to  enlarged  detail, 
and  finishing  parts  with  a  characteristic  disregard 
for  the  unity  of  his  composition. 


48         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

The  journey  was  extended  by  the  old  route, 
conditioned  by  business  as  before,  —  round  the 
south  coast  to  the  west  of  England,  and  then  into 
Wales.  There,  his  powers  of  drawing  failed  him  ; 
moonlight  on  Snowdon  was  too  vague  a  subject 
for  the  black  lead  pencil,  but  a  hint  of  it  could 
be  conveyed  in  rhyme  :  — 

"  Folding,  like  an  airy  vest, 
The  very  clouds  had  sunk  to  rest ; 
Light  gilds  the  rugged  mountain's  breast, 
Calmly  as  they  lay  below ; 
Every  hill  seemed  topped  with  snow, 
As  the  flowing  tide  of  light 
Broke  the  slumbers  of  the  night." 

Harlech  Castle  was  too  sublime  for  a  sketch; 
but  it  was  painted  with  the  pen  :  — 

"  So  mighty,  so  majestic,  and  so  lone  ; 
And  all  thy  music,  now,  the  ocean's  murmuring." 

And  the  enthusiasm  of  mountain  glory,  a  sort  of 
Bacchic  ecstasy  of  uncontrollable  passion,  strug- 
gles for  articulate  deliverance  in  the  climbing- 
song,  "  I  love  ye,  ye  eternal  hills." 

It  was  hard  to  come  back  to  the  daily  round, 
the  common  task,  especially  when,  in  this  autumn 
of  183 1,  to  Dr.  Andrews's  Latin  and  Greek,  the 
French  grammar  and  Euclid  were  added,  under 
Mr.  Rowbotham.  And  the  new  tutor  had  no 
funny  stories  to  tell ;  he  was  not  so  engaging  a 
man  as  the  "  dear  Doctor,"  and  his  memory  was 
not  sweet  to  his  wayward  pupil.  But  the  parents 
had  chosen  the  best  man  for  the  work,  —  one  who 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  49 

was  favorably  known  by  his  manuals,  and  capable 
of  interesting  even  a  budding  poet  in  the  mathe- 
matics. For  our  author  tells  that  a  little  later  he 
spent  all  his  available  time  in  trying  to  trisect  an 
angle,  and  that  at  Oxford,  and  ever  after,  he 
knew  his  Euclid  without  the  figures ;  in  French, 
too,  he  progressed  enough  to  be  able  to  find  his 
way  alone  in  Paris  two  years  later.  And  how- 
ever the  saucy  boy  may  have  satirized  his  tutor 
in  the  droll  verses  on  "  Bed-time,"  Mr.  Rowbotham 
always  remembered  him  with  affection,  and  spoke 
of  him  with  respect.  John  Ruskin,  boy  and  man, 
has  had  a  terrible  power  of  winning  hearts. 

In  spite  of  these  tedious  tutorships,  he  managed 
to  scribble  energetically  all  this  winter :  attempts 
at  Waverley  novels  which  never  got  beyond  the 
first  chapter,  and  imitations  of  "  Childe  Harold  " 
and  "Don  Juan;  "  scraps  in  the  style  of  everybody 
in  turn,  necessarily  imitative  because  immature. 
He  was  curiously  versatile :  one  time  he  would  be 
pedantic,  or  stiff  with  the  buckram  and  plume  of 
romance ;  again,  gossipy  and  naif  and  humorous ; 
then  sarcastic  and  satirical,  sparing  no  one ;  then, 
carried  away  with  a  frenzy  of  excitement,  which 
struggles  to  express  itself,  convulsively,  and  dies 
away  in  nonsense.  No  wonder  his  mother  sent 
him  to  bed  at  nine,  punctually,  and  kept  him 
from  school,  in  vain  efforts  to  quiet  his  brain. 
The  lack  of  companions  was  made  up  to  him  in 
the  friendship  of  Richard  Fall,  son  of  a  neighbor 
on  "the  Hill,"  —  a  boy  without  affectation  or  mor- 


50         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

bidity  of  disposition,  whose  complementary  charac- 
ter suited  him  well.  An  affectionate  comradeship 
sprang  up  between  the  two  lads,  and  lasted  until 
in  middle  life  they  drifted  apart,  not  quarreling, 
but  each  going  on  his  own  course  to  his  own  des- 
tiny. 

John  Ruskin  made  some  real  advance  this 
winter  (1831-32)  with  his  Shelleyan  "Sonnet  to 
a  Cloud"  and  his  imitations  of  Byron's  "Hebrew 
Melodies,"  from  which  he  learned  how  to  con- 
centrate expression,  and  to  use  rich  vowel  sounds 
and  liquid  consonants  with  rolling  effect.  A 
deeper  and  more  serious  turn  of  thought,  that 
gradually  usurps  the  place  of  the  first  boyish 
effervescence,  is  traced  by  him  to  the  influence 
of  Byron,  in  whom,  while  others  see  nothing 
more  than  wit  and  passion,  Mr.  Ruskin  sees  an 
earnest  mind  and  a  sound  judgment. 

But  the  most  sincere  poem,  if  sincerity  be 
marked  by  unstudied  phrase  and  neglected  rhyme, 

—  the  most  genuine  "  lyrical  cry  "  of  this  period, 

—  is  that  song  in  which  our  boy-poet  poured  forth 
his  longing  for  the  "  blue  hills  "  he  had  loved  as  a 
baby,  and  for  those  Coniston  crags  over  which, 
when  he  became  old  and  sorely  stricken,  he  was 
still  to  see  the  morning  break.  When  he  wrote 
these  verses  he  was  nearly  fourteen,  or  just  past 
his  birthday ;  it  had  been  eighteen  months  since 
he  had  been  in  Wales,  and  all  the  weary  while  he 
had  seen  no  mountains ;  but  in  his  regrets  he 
goes  back  a  year  farther  still,  to  fix  upon  the 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  5 1 

Lakeland  hills,  less  majestic  than  Snowdon,  but 
more  endeared ;  and  he  describes  his  sensations 
on  approaching  the  beloved  objects  in  the  very 
terms  that  Dante  uses  for  his  first  sight  of  Bea- 
trice :  — 

"  I  weary  for  the  fountain  foaming, 
For  shady  holm  and  hill ; 
My  mind  is  on  the  mountain  roaming, 
My  spirit's  voice  is  still. 

"  I  weary  for  the  woodland  brook 
That  wanders  through  the  vale ; 
I  weary  for  the  heights  that  look 
Adown  upon  the  dale. 

"  The  crags  are  lone  on  Coniston 
And  Glaramara's  dell ;  J 
And  dreary  on  the  mighty  one, 
The  cloud-enwreathed  Sea-fell. 

"  Oh  !  what  although  the  crags  be  stern 
Their  mighty  peaks  that  sever,  — 
Fresh  flies  the  breeze  on  mountain  fern. 
And  free  on  mountain  heather.  .  .  . 

"  There  is  a  thrill  of  strange  delight 
That  passes  quivering  o'er  me, 
When  blue  hills  rise  upon  the  sight, 
Like  summer  clouds  before  me." 

Judge,  then,  of  the  delight  with  which  he  turned 
over  the  pages  of  a  new  book,  given  him  this  birth- 
day by  the  kind  Mr.  Telford,  in  whose  carriage  he 
had  first  seen  these  blue  hills,  —  a  book  in  which 
all  his  mountain  ideals,  and  more,  were  caught 

1  So  in  the  MS. ;  changed  afterwards  to  "  Lowes  water's  dell." 


52         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK""OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

and  kept  enshrined,  —  visions  still,  and  of  mightier 
peaks  and  ampler  valleys,  —  romantically  "  tost  " 
and  sublimely  "  lost,"  as  he  had  so  often  written  in 
his  favorite  rhymes.  In  the  vignettes  to  Rogers's 
"  Italy,"  Turner  had  touched  the  chord  for  which 
John  Ruskin  had  been  feeling  all  these  years :  no 
wonder  that  he  took  Turner  for  his  leader  and 
master,  and  fondly  tried  to  copy  the  wonderful 
Alps  at  Daybreak,  to  begin  with,  and  then  to 
imitate  this  new-found  magic  art  with  his  own 
subjects ;  and  finally  to  come  boldly  before  the 
world  in  passionate  defense  of  a  man  who  had 
done  such  great  things  for  him. 

This  mountain-worship  was  not  inherited  from 
his  father,  however  it  may  have  been  an  inherit- 
ance, as  some  think,  from  remote  ancestry.  Mr. 
J.  J.  Ruskin  never  was  enthusiastic  about  peaks 
and  clouds  and  glaciers,  though  he  was  interested 
in  all  traveling  in  a  general  way.  So  that  it  was 
not  Rogers's  "  Italy  "  that  sent  the  family  off  to  the 
Alps  that  summer;  but,  fortunately  for  John,  his 
father's  eye  was  caught  by  the  romantic  architec- 
ture of  Prout's  "Sketches  in  Flanders  and  Ger- 
many," when  it  came  out  in  April,  1833  ;  and  his 
mother  proposed  to  make  both  of  them  happy  in 
a  tour  on  the  Continent.  The  business  round 
was  abandoned,  but  they  could  see  Mr.  Domecq 
on  their  way  back  through  Paris,  and  not  wholly 
lose  the  time. 

They  waited  to  keep  papa's  birthday  on  May 
10th,  and  early  next  morning  drove  off;  father 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  53 

and  mother,  John  and  Mary,  nurse  Anne  and  the 
courier  Salvador.  They  crossed  to  Calais,  and 
posted,  as  people  did  in  the  old  times,  slowly  from 
point  to  point :  starting  betimes ;  halting  at  the 
roadside  inns,  where  John  tried  to  snatch  a  sketch ; 
reaching  their  destination  early  enough  to  investi- 
gate the  cathedral  or  the  citadel,  monuments  of 
antiquity  or  achievements  of  modern  civilization, 
with  impartial  eagerness ;  and  before  bedtime 
John  would  write  up  his  journal  and  work  up  his 
sketches,  just  as  if  he  were  at  home.  Once  or 
twice  he  found  time  to  sit  down  and  make  a 
Proutesque  study  of  some  great  building,  probably 
to  please  his  father ;  but  his  mind  was  set  on  his 
Turner  vignettes. 

So  they  worked  through  Flanders  and  Germany, 
following  Prout's  lead  by  the  castles  of  the  Rhine ; 
but  at  last,  at  Schaffhausen,  one  Sunday  evening, 
—  "  suddenly  —  behold  —  beyond  !  "  —  they  had 
seen  the  Alps.  Thenceforward  Turner  was  their 
guide,  as  they  crossed  the  Spliigen,  sailed  the 
Italian  lakes,  wondered  at  Milan  Cathedral  and 
the  Mediterranean  at  Genoa,  and  then  —  whether 
because  it  was  too  hot  to  go  southward,  or  because 
John,  having  tasted  the  Alps,  importuned  for 
more  —  roamed  through  the  Oberland  and  back 
to  Chamouni.  All  this  while  a  great  plan  shaped 
itself  in  the  boy's  head :  no  less  than  to  make  a 
Rogers's  "  Italy,"  for  himself,  just  as  once  he  had 
tried  to  make  a  "  Harry  and  Lucy"  or  a  "Diction- 
ary of  Minerals."     On  every  place  they  passed  he 


54         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

would  write  verses  and  prose  sketches,  to  give  re- 
spectively the  romance  and  the  reality,  —  or  rid- 
icule, for  he  saw  the  comic  side  of  it  all,  keenly; 
and  he  would  illustrate  the  series  with  Turner- 
esque  vignettes,  drawn  with  the  finest  crow-quill 
pen,  to  imitate  the  delicate  engravings.  That  was 
his  plan ;  and  if  he  never  quite  carried  it  out,  he 
got  good  practice  in  two  things  which  went  to 
the  making  of  "  Modern  Painters  " :  in  descriptive 
writing,  and  in  getting  at  the  mind  and  method  of 
Turner,  by  following  him  on  his  own  sketching- 
ground  and  carrying  out  his  subjects  in  his  own 
way.  This  is  just  what  Turner  had  done  with 
Vandevelde  and  Claude ;  and  it  is  the  way  to 
learn  a  landscape  painter's  business :  there  is  no 
other,  for  simple  copying  neglects  the  relation  of 
art  to  Nature,  —  it  is  like  trying  to  learn  a  lan- 
guage without  a  dictionary ;  and  unguided  experi- 
ments are  not  education  at  all.  By  this  imitation 
of  Turner  and  Prout,  John  Ruskin  learned  more 
drawing  in  two  or  three  years  than  most  amateur 
students  do  in  seven :  he  had  hit  upon  the  right 
method,  and  worked  hard.  For  the  first  year  he 
has  the  Watchtower  of  Andernach  and  the  Jung- 
frau  from  Interlaken  to  show,  with  others  of  simi- 
lar style ;  and  thenceforward  alternates  between 
Turner  and  Prout,  until  he  settles  into  something 
different  from  either. 

But  Turner  and  Prout  were  not  the  only  artists 
he  knew.  At  Paris  he  found  his  way  into  the 
Louvre,  and  got  leave  from  the  directors,  though 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  55 

he  was  under  the  age  required,  to  copy.  It  is 
curious  that  the  picture  he  chose  was  a  Rem- 
brandt ;  it  shows,  what  the  casual  reader  of  his 
works  on  art  might  miss,  that  he  is  naturally  a 
chiaroscurist,  and  that  his  praise  of  the  Pre-Rapha- 
elite color  and  draughtsmanship  is  not  prompted 
by  his  taste  and  native  feeling  so  much  as  by 
intellectual  judgment. 

Between  this  foreign  tour  and  the  next,  John 
Ruskin's  chief  work  was  to  draw  these  vignettes 
and  to  write  the  poems  suggested  by  the  scenes 
he  had  visited  :  that  was  what  he  did  con  amove  ; 
his  studies  in  classics  and  mathematics  were  mere 
routine.  He  had  outgrown  the  evening  lessons 
with  Dr.  Andrews,  and  as  he  was  fifteen  it  was 
time  to  think  more  seriously  of  preparing  him  for 
Oxford,  where  his  name  was  put  down  at  Christ 
Church.  His  father  hoped  he  would  go  into  the 
church,  and  eventually  turn  out  a  combination  of 
a  Byron  and  a  bishop,  something  like  Dean  Mil- 
man,  only  better.  For  this,  college  was  a  neces- 
sary preliminary;  for  college,  some  little  schooling. 
So  they  picked  the  best  day-school  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, that  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Dale,  in  Grove 
Lane,  Peckham,  the  author  of  various  learned  and 
theological  works,  —  as  it  appears  from  second- 
hand catalogues,  —  and  afterwards  Canon  of  St. 
Paul's.  His  first  start  with  the  new  boy  was  un- 
fortunate, and  he  never  regained  the  confidence 
he  had  lost  when  he  called  Adam's  Grammar 
"  that  Scotch  thing."     John  Ruskin  worked  with 


56         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

him  rather  less  than  two  years.  In  1835  ne  was 
taken  from  school  in  consequence  of  an  attack  of 
pleurisy,  and  never  returned  ;  though  he  attended 
Mr.  Dale's  lectures  at  King's  College,  London,  in 
1836. 

More  interesting  to  him  than  school  was  the 
British  Museum  collection  of  minerals,  where  he 
worked  occasionally  with  his  Jameson's  Diction- 
ary. By  this  time  he  had  a  fair  student's  collec- 
tion of  his  own,  and  he  increased  it  by  picking  up 
specimens  at  Matlock  or  Clifton  or  in  the  Alps, 
wherever  he  went ;  for  he  was  not  short  of  pocket- 
money  :  he  earned  enough  by  scribbling,  even  if 
his  father  were  not  always  ready  to  indulge  his 
fancy.  He  took  the  greatest  pains  over  his  cata- 
logues, and  wrote  elaborate  accounts  of  the  various 
minerals  in  a  shorthand  he  invented  out  of  Greek 
letters  and  crystal  forms. 

Grafted  on  this  mineralogy,  and  stimulated  by 
the  Swiss  tour,  was  a  new  interest  in  physical 
geology,  which  his  father  so  far  approved  as  to 
give  him  Saussure's  "  Voyages  dans  les  Alpes,"  for 
his  birthday  in  1834.  In  this  book  he  found  the 
complement  of  Turner's  vignettes,  something  like 
a  key  to  the  "  reason  why  "  of  all  the  wonderful 
forms  and  marvelous  mountain  architecture  of  the 
Alps. 

In  our  hills  of  the  north  these  things  do  not  so 
obviously  call  for  explanation ;  but  no  intelligent 
boy  could  look  long  and  intently  at  the  crags  of 
Lauterbrunnen  and  the  peaks  of  Savoy  without 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  57 

feeling  that  their  twisted  strata  present  a  problem 
which  arouses  all  his  curiosity.  And  this  boy 
was  by  no  means  content  with  a  superficial  senti- 
ment of  grandeur.  He  tried  to  understand  the 
causes  of  it,  to  get  at  the  secrets  of  the  structure ; 
and  found  poetry  in  that  mystery  of  the  mountains, 
no  less  than  in  their  storms  and  sunrises.  He 
soon  wrote  a  short  essay  on  the  subject,  and  had 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  it  in  print,  in  Loudon's 
"  Magazine  of  Natural  History"  for  March,  1834, 
along  with  another  bit  of  his  writing,  asking  for 
information  on  the  cause  of  the  color  of  the 
Rhine-water.  It  was  rather  characteristic  that  he 
began  his  literary  career  by  asking  questions  that 
got  no  answer ;  and  that  his  next  appearance  in 
print  was  to  demolish  a  correspondent  to  the  same 
magazine,  whose  account  of  rats  eating  leaden 
pipes  was  discredited  by  the  extraordinary  dimen- 
sions which  he  assigned.  The  analytic  John  Rus- 
kin  was  an  enfant  terrible. 

He  had  already  made  some  acquaintance  with 
Mr.  J.  C.  Loudon,  F.  L.  S.,  H.S.,  etc.,  and  he  was 
on  the  staff  of  that  versatile  editor  not  long  after- 
wards, and  took  a  lion's  share  of  the  writing  in 
the  "  Magazine  of  Architecture."  Meanwhile  he 
had  been  introduced  to  another  editor,  and  to  the 
publishers  with  whom  he  did  business  for  many 
a  year  to  come.  The  acquaintance  was  made  in  a 
curious,  accidental  manner.  His  Croydon  cousin, 
Charles,  had  come  to  town  as  clerk  in  the  pub- 
lishing house  of  Messrs.  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  and 


58         THE    LIFE   AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

had  the  opportunity  of  mentioning  the  young 
poet's  name  to  Mr.  Thomas  Pringle,  who  edited 
their  well-known  annual,  "  Friendship's  Offering." 
Mr.  Pringle  came  out  to  Heme  Hill,  and  was 
hospitably  entertained  as  a  brother  Scot,  as  not 
only  an  editor,  but  a  poet  himself,  —  not  only  a 
poet,  but  a  man  of  respectability  and  piety,  who 
had  been  a  missionary  in  South  Africa.  In  return 
for  this  hospitality  he  gave  a  good  report  of  John's 
verses,  and  after  getting  him  to  rewrite  two  of 
the  best  passages  in  the  last  Tour,  carried  them 
off  for  insertion  in  his  forthcoming  number.  He 
did  more :  he  carried  John  to  see  the  actual  Mr. 
Samuel  Rogers  whose  verses  had  been  adorned 
by  the  great  Turner's  vignettes ;  but  it  seems  that 
the  boy  was  not  courtier  enough  —  home-bred  as 
he  had  been  —  to  compliment  the  poet  as  poets 
love  to  be  complimented;  and  the  great  man,  dil- 
ettante as  he  was,  had  not  the  knowledge  of  art 
to  be  honestly  delighted  with  the  boy's  enthusiasm 
for  the  wonderful  drawings  which  had  given  his 
book  the  best  part  of  its  value. 

After  the  pleurisy  of  April,  1835,  his  parents 
took  him  abroad  again,  and  he  made  great  prepa- 
rations to  use  the  opportunity  to  the  utmost.  He 
would  study  geology  in  the  field,  and  took  Saus- 
sure  in  his  trunk;  he  would  note  meteorology, 
the  color  whether  of  Rhine-water  or  of  Alpine 
skies,  and  invented  a  cyanometer,  —  a  scale  of 
blue  to  measure  the  depth  of  tone.  He  would 
sketch ;  by  now  he  had  abandoned  the  desire  to 


LA    SCALA    MONUMENT,    VERONA 
By  John  Ruskin,  1835 


MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP.  59 

make  MS.  albums,  after  seeing  himself  in  print; 
and  so  chose  rather  to  imitate  the  imitable,  and 
to  follow  Prout,  this  time,  with  careful  outlines 
on  the  spot,  than  to  idealize  his  notes  in  mimic 
Turnerism.  And  he  meant  to  keep  his  journal 
in  verse.,  warned  by  the  labor  and  the  failures  in- 
volved in  rewriting  everything  on  his  return.  But 
even  that  poetical  journal  was  dropped  after  he 
had  carried  it  through  France,  across  the  Jura, 
and  to  Chamouni.  The  drawing  crowded  it  out, 
and  for  the  first  time  he  found  himself  over  the 
pons  asinorum  of  art,  and  as  ready  with  his  pencil 
as  he  had  been  with  his  pen. 

His  route  is  marked  by  the  drawings  of  that 
year,  from  Chamouni  to  the  St.  Bernard  and 
Aosta,  back  to  the  Oberland  and  up  the  St. 
Gothard ;  then  back  again  to  Lucerne  and  round 
by  the  Stelvio  to  Venice  and  Verona;  and  finally 
through  the  Tyrol  and  Germany  homewards.  The 
ascent  of  the  St.  Bernard  was  told  in  a  dramatic 
sketch  of  great  humor  and  power  of  characteriza- 
tion ;  and  a  letter  to  Richard  Fall  records  the 
night  on  the  Rigi  when  he  saw  the  splendid  se- 
quence of  storm,  sunset,  moonlight,  and  daybreak 
which  forms  the  subject  of  one  of  the  most  im- 
pressive passages  of  "  Modern  Painters." 

It  happened  that  Mr.  Pringle  had  a  plate  of 
Salzburg  which  he  wanted  to  print  in  order  to 
make  up  the  volume  of  "  Friendship's  Offering  " 
for  the  next  Christmas.  He  seems  to  have  asked 
John  Ruskin  to  furnish  a  copy  of  verses  for  the 


60         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

picture;  and  at  Salzburg,  accordingly,  a  bit  of 
rhymed  description  was  written,  and  rewritten, 
and  sent  home  to  the  editor.  Early  in  December 
the  Ruskins  returned ;  and  at  Christmas  there 
came  to  Heme  Hill  a  gorgeous  gilt  morocco  vol- 
ume "  To  John  Ruskin,  from  the  Publishers." 
On  opening  it,  there  were  his  "  Andernach  "  and 
"  St.  Goar,"  and  his  "  Salzburg,"  opposite  a  beauti- 
fully engraved  plate,  all  hills  and  towers  and  boats 
and  picturesquely  moving  figures  under  the  sun- 
set, in  Turner's  manner  more  or  less,  —  really  by 
Turner's  engraver.  It  was  almost  like  being  Mr. 
Rogers  himself. 


CHAPTER  V. 

A    LOVE-STORY. 
(1836-1839.) 

"  I  think  there  is  no  unreturned  love  —  the  pay  is  certain,  one  way  or  an- 
other. 
I  loved  a  certain  person  ardently,  and  my  love  was  not  returned, 
Yet  out  of  that,  I  have  written  these  songs." 

Leaves  of  Grass. 

Whenever  a  new  biography  comes,  be  it  of 
poet  or  statesman,  engineer  or  philanthropist,  I 
confess  to  turning  the  pages  in  hope  of  a  love- 
story.  Other  readers,  it  seems,  do  likewise ;  and 
not  unreasonably.  There  is  so  much  to  be  learned 
from  the  behavior  of  a  man  under  those  trying 
circumstances ;  one  gets  the  character  unveiled  in 
moments  of  passion.  If  he  is  an  egoist,  he  shows 
it  then,  perhaps,  after  keeping  it  dark  for  years. 
If  he  is  coarse  or  selfish  by  nature,  with  only  a 
veneer  of  culture,  in  his  love-affair  the  true  man 
comes  out.  In  vino  Veritas,  they  used  to  say ; 
meaning  that  when  a  man  is  quite  off  his  guard, 
he  tells  his  secret.  And  so  it  is  in  love.  Note 
him  then,  and  you  have  the  truth  about  him. 
That  is  perhaps  why  we  lay  stress  on  the  domes- 
tic relations  of  our  leaders;  we  cannot  trust  a 
man  who  has  deceived  the  woman  he  chose ;  we 


62         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

cannot  believe  in  the  ideals  of  a  man  who  has 
falsified  them  in  the  critical  opportunity  of  his 
life.  On  the  other  hand,  we  forgive  much  to  one 
who  loves  much ;  we  admire  a  man  who  forbears 
much;  and  we  augur  well  of  the  youth  whose 
first  romance  has  left  him  nothing  that  he  need 
be  ashamed  of. 

In  the  quiet  household  on  Heme  Hill,  the 
ordinary  temptations  of  youth  were  unknown. 
"  Don  Juan  "  and  "  Don  Quixote,"  with  all*  their 
supposed  evil  example,  coarse  expression  and 
suggestion,  ran  like  water  from  a  duck's  back  :  to 
the  pure  all  things  are  pure.  The  ideal  Harry  of 
our  young  hero's  early  days,  who  mirrored  him 
in  everything,  took  little  interest  in  his  reading 
unless  he  had  "  seen  something  like  it "  outside 
of  books ;  and  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  like 
Julia  or  Maritornes  in  his  immediate  surround- 
ings. Not  that  it  was  a  monastery;  there  was 
plenty  of  liveliness ;  there  were  pretty  playmates 
and  charming  neighbors;  but  the  blight  of  un- 
watched  schoolboyhood  never  touched  him.  If 
it  had,  there  would  surely  be  some  indication  of 
it  in  his  work;  but  there  is  no  trace  of  even 
ordinary  interest  in  womankind  in  the  mass 
of  notes  and  scribbles  of  all  these  early  days. 
Rather,  if  anything,  an  antagonism  to  girls ;  for 
they  teased  him  about  his  rhymes  as  not  being 
sentimental  enough. 

So,  when  love  came,  it  was  a  surprise.  There 
had  been  no  foretaste  of  it,  no  vulgarization  of 


A   LOVE-STORY.       *  63 

it;  nothing  to  take  the  bloom  off,  to  discount  the 
impetuosity  of  a  first  passion.  And  it  is  no 
wonder  if,  looking  back,  he  was  amused  at  him- 
self, and  wrote  jestingly  in  "  Praeterita "  of  the 
affair,  to  cover  the  annoyance  with  which  one  re- 
gards the  absurdities  of  one's  youth.  But  it  was 
a  quite  serious  affair,  on  his  side,  and  led  to 
serious  consequences. 

The  Ruskins  had  reached  home  early  in  De- 
cember, 1835,  and  found  cold  cheer  in  England 
after  their  traveling.  The  father,  especially,  felt 
it  hard  to  settle  down  to  work  in  his  dingy  office 
after  the  excitements  of  Italy.  In  a  clever  scene 
in  which  John  dramatized  a  typical  family  talk 
at  breakfast,  satirizing  his  parents  with  a  freedom 
which  shows  that  any  severity  recorded  of  them 
was  only  superficial,  the  father  is  made  to  describe 
the  tedium  of  business  talk  and  the  annoyances  of 
the  warehouse  in  very  lively  terms ;  while  his  good 
wife  "  flytes  "  him,  as  in  duty  bound. 

But  they  were  not  to  be  left  long  without  ex- 
citement. A  few  weeks  later,  Mr.  Domecq  came 
over  from  Paris  on  business,  and  brought  his  four 
younger  daughters,  —  the  eldest  having  been  lately 
married  to  a  Count  Maison,  heir  to  a  peer  of 
France.  It  was  an  unaccustomed  invasion  of 
the  house,  and  something  new  to  have  a  bevy 
of  young  ladies  to  take  about  and  entertain,  while 
their  father  was  busy  with  partners  and  custom- 
ers. 

There  were  four  of  them,  —  the  "  first   really 


64         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

well-bred  and  well-dressed  girls"  John  had  met; 
all  charming  and  clever  and  pretty.  His  mother 
might  have  known  that  he  was  bound  to  fall  in 
love  with  one  or  other ;  but  she  argued  that  he 
was  safe  in  his  studies ;  and  then  the  girls  were 
foreigners  and  convent -bred  Catholics,  which 
seemed  to  put  a  great  gulf  between  them  and  a 
true-blue  Briton  and  Protestant.  As  to  Mr.  Do- 
mecq —  When  one  has  four  daughters,  and  a 
first-rate  business  partner  with  a  clever  son,  what 
may  not  one  think  right  to  do  ? 

Any  of  the  sisters  would  have  charmed  him, 
but  the  eldest  of  the  four,  Adele  Clotilde,  be- 
witched him  at  once  with  her  graceful  figure  and 
that  oval  face  which  was  so  admired  in  those 
times.  She  was  fair,  too;  another  recommenda- 
tion. He  was  on  the  brink  of  seventeen,  at  the 
ripe  moment;  and  he  fell  passionately  in  love 
with  her.  She  was  only  fifteen,  and  did  not  un- 
derstand this  adoration,  unspoken,  and  unex- 
pressed except  by  intensified  shyness.  For  he 
was  a  very  shy  boy  with  strangers,  brought  up  as 
he  was  without  any  regular  experience  of  draw- 
ing-room manners  and  social  affability.  If  he 
had  been  taught  a  little  to  dance,  it  was  only 
enough  to  discover  that  quadrilles  were  invented 
by  Stupidity  itself;  and  now,  what  would  he  not 
have  given  for  a  share  of  that  despised  man  of  the 
world-liness  and  assurance  of  address  ?  In  com- 
pany he  sat  uneasy ;  when  he  got  the  chance  of 
separate  conversation,  a  jibbing  Pegasus  plunged 


A    LOVE-STORY.  65 

him  into  perverse  and  inconsiderate  behavior. 
His  uneasiness  bred  an  appearance  of  antago- 
nism ;  in  fit  upon  fit  of  shyness  he  disputed,  prosed, 
sulked,  did  everything  that  could  alienate  a  bright 
girl  —  from  Paris,  too  ;  whose  notions  of  British 
morgue  and  phlegm  were  only  too  justified  by  his 
want  of  style  and  his  obvious  awkwardness. 

And  yet  he  had  advantages,  if  he  had  known 
how  to  use  them.  He  was  tall  and  active,  light 
and  lithe  in  gesture,  not  a  clumsy  hobbledehoy. 
He  had  the  face  that  caught  the  eye,  in  Rome  a 
few  years  later,  of  Keats  s  Severn,  no  mean  judge 
surely  of  faces,  and  poets'  faces.  He  was  unde- 
niably clever;  he  knew  all  about  minerals  and 
mountains ;  he  was  quite  an  artist,  and  a  printed 
poet!  But  these  things  weigh  little  with  a  girl  of 
fifteen  who  wants  to  be  amused ;  and  so  she  only 
laughed  at  John. 

He  tried  to  amuse  her,  but  he  tried  too  seri- 
ously. He  wrote  a  story  to  read  her,  —  "  Leoni, 
a  Legend  of  Italy ; "  for  of  course  she  understood 
enough  English  to  be  read  to,  no  doubt  to  be 
wooed  in,  seeing  her  mother  was  English.  The 
story  was  of  brigands  and  true  lovers,  the  thing 
that  was  popular  in  the  romantic  period,  when 
Eastlake's  Banditti  were  admired  in  the  Royal 
Academy,  and  Schiller's  "  Robbers  "  had  not  lost 
its  effect.  The  costumery  and  mannerisms  of 
the  little  romance  are  out  of  date  now,  and  seem 
ridiculous  as  an  old-fashioned  dress  does ;  though 
Mr.   Pringle  and  the  public  were   pleased  .with 


66         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

it  then,  when  it  was  printed  in  "  Friendship's  Of- 
fering." But  the  note  of  passion  was  too  real 
for  the  girl  of  fifteen,  and  she  only  laughed  the 
more. 

When  they  left,  he  was  alone  with  his  poetry 
again.  But  now  he  had  no  interest  in  his  tour- 
book  ;  even  the  mountains,  for  the  time,  had  lost 
their  power ;  and  all  his  plans  of  great  works  were 
dropped  for  a  new  style  of  verse,  the  love  poems 
of  1836.  In  reading  these  one  is  struck  by  some- 
thing artificial ;  they  are  too  closely  modeled  on 
well-known  forms;  for  the  poet  was  not  mature  in 
his  art;  and  it  means  great  accomplishment  when 
the  height  of  passion  is  united  with  absolute  fresh- 
ness in  diction  ;  the  celare  artem  of  the  consum- 
mate writer.  The  best  love  poems  have  been 
written  to  imaginary  loves ;  and  real-life  love- 
letters  are  generally  but  poor  literature,  a  cento 
of  commonplaces.  So  that  the  derivative  nature 
of  these  verses  does  not  preclude  the  genuineness 
of  the  passion  that  inspired  them. 

This  formality  appears  more  strongly  in  those 
pieces  which  were  afterwards  revised  for  publica- 
tion ;  for  the  extraordinary  thing  is  that  this  pas- 
sion and  poesy  were  no  secret.  His  father,  from 
whom  he  kept  nothing,  approved  the  verses,  and 
did  not  disapprove  his  views  on  the  young  lady. 
A  marriage  could  hardly  have  been  a  mesalliance 
on  either  side  from  a  worldly  point  of  view,  for 
the  Ruskins  were  now  well  off,  and  business  is 
business;   perhaps  the  bishopric  in  view  would 


A    LOVE-STORY.  67 

have  been  lost  sight  of.  But  to  Mrs.  Ruskin, 
with  her  religious  feelings,  it  was  intolerable,  un- 
believable, that  the  son  whom  she  had  brought  up 
in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  strictest 
Protestantism  should  fix  his  heart  on  an  alien  in 
race  and  creed.  The  wonder  is  that  their  rela- 
tions were  not  more  strained;  there  are  few  young 
men  who  would  have  kept  their  full  allegiance  to 
a  mother  whose  sympathy  failed  them  at  such  a 
crisis.  As  it  was,  this  marks  the  first  step  towards 
the  withdrawal,  not  of  affection,  but  of  completely 
reposed  confidence. 

To  end  the  story  we  must  anticipate  a  little. 
There  are  so  many  strands  in  this  complex  life 
that  they  cannot  be  followed  all  at  once.  When 
we  have  traced  this  one  out,  we  can  resume  the 
history  of  John  Ruskin  as  student  and  poet  and 
youthful  savant. 

As  the  year  went  on,  his  passion  seemed  to  grow, 
in  the  absence  of  the  beloved  object.  His  only 
plan  of  winning  her  was  to  win  his  spurs  first : 
but  as  what  ?  Clearly,  his  forte,  it  seemed,  was 
in  writing.  If  he  could  be  a  successful  writer  of 
romances,  of  songs,  of  plays,  surely  she  would  not 
refuse  him.  And  so  he  began  another  romantic 
story,  "  Velasquez,  the  Novice,"  —  opening  with 
the  monks  of  St.  Bernard,  among  whom  had  been, 
so  the  tale  ran,  a  mysterious  member  whose 
papers,  when  discovered,  made  him  out  the  hero 
of  adventures  in  Venice.  He  began  a  play  which 
was   to  be  another  great  work,  "  Marcolini,"  to 


68         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

which  he  has  alluded  in  terms  which  leave  one  in 
doubt  whether  its  author  has  reread  it  since  it 
was  written  under  the  mulberry-tree  in  Heme  Hill 
garden,  that  summer  of  1836.  Partly  Shakespear- 
ean, but  more  Byronic  in  form,  it  does  not  de- 
pend merely  on  description,  but  shows  a  drama- 
tic power  of  character  and  dialogue  indicated  by 
many  earlier  attempts  at  stories  and  scenes  which 
justifies  the  remark  of  Mrs.  Thackeray  Ritchie : 
"  Ruskin  should  have  been  a  novelist.  When 
he  chooses  to  describe  a  man  or  a  woman,  there 
stands  the  figure  before  us;  when  he  tells  a  story, 
we  live  it."  But  she  is  equally  right  in  adding, 
"  His  is  rather  the  descriptive  than  the  construc- 
tive faculty ;  his  mastery  is  over  detail  and  quan- 
tity rather  than  over  form."  The  weakness  of 
"  Marcolini  "  is  in  the  arrangement  and  disposi- 
tion of  the  plot :  he  has  no  playwright's  eye  for 
situations.  But  the  conversation  is  animated, 
and  the  characters  are  finely  drawn,  with  more 
discrimination  than  one  would  expect  from  so 
young  an  author. 

This  work  was  interrupted  at  the  end  of  Act 
III.  by  pressing  calls  to  other  studies,  of  which  in 
the  next  chapter ;  and  then  by  the  attempt  to  win 
the  distinction  he  sought  in  the  Newdigate  prize 
at  Oxford.  But  it  was  not  that  he  had  forgotten 
Adele.  From  time  to  time  he  wrote  verses  to 
her,  or  about  her ;  and  as  in  1838  she  was  sent  to 
school  with  her  sisters  near  Chelmsford,  to  "  fin- 
ish "  her  in  English,  in  that  August  he  saw  her 


A    LOVE-STORY.  69 

again.  She  had  lost  some  of  her  first  girlish  pret- 
tiness,  but  that  made  no  difference.  And  when 
the  Domecqs  came  to  Heme  Hill  at  Christmas 
to  spend  their  holidays,  he  was  as  deeply  in  love 
as  ever.  He  could  show  her  the  new  "Friend- 
ship's Offering,"  just  come  out,  with  a  poem  "  To 
*  *  *  "  which  was  a  direct  appeal  enough.  He 
followed  it  up  with  printing  others  of  his  poems 
to  her  in  "  The  London  Monthly  Miscellany  "  for 
the  next  three  months.  He  won  his  Newdigate ; 
he  had  written  brilliantly,  for  a  youth,  in  the 
"  Architectural  Magazine,"  and  was  plainly  a  rising 
young  man.     But  she  still  laughed  at  him. 

It  seems  that  the  pertinacity  of  his  passion  dis- 
turbed his  parents  not  a  little ;  enough  for  them 
to  employ  the  somewhat  desperate  expedient  of 
throwing  other  girls  in  his  way.  And  one  gathers 
from  tradition,  putting  hints  together,  that  more 
than  one  fair  damsel  would  have  been  willing 
enough  to  receive  his  suit.  But  his  affections 
remained  fixed,  most  unreasonably,  if  lovers  knew 
such  a  thing  as  reason. 

Soon  after  her  return  to  France,  emancipated 
from  schoolgirlhood, —  greatly,  no  doubt,  to  the 
elder  Ruskins'  relief, —  her  father  died ;  and  pro- 
posals were  made  for  her  hand  by  a  young  French 
Baron  Duquesne,  of  which  the  unsuccessful-  suitor 
heard  in  September,  1839.  He  wrote  the  long 
poem  of  "Farewell,"  dated  the  eve  of  their  last 
meeting  and  parting.  One  sees  that  he  has  been 
reading  his  Shelley ;  one  sees  that  he  knows  he 


70         THE    LIFE   AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

is  writing  "  poetry ;  "  but  at  the  same  time  one 
cannot  but  believe  that  his  disappointment  was 
deep,  after  nearly  four  years  of  hope  and  effort, 
and  real  fidelity  at  a  period  of.  life  when,  if  ever, 
a  lover's  unfaithfulness  might  be  easily  pardoned, 
placed  as  he  was  among  new  scenes  and  new 
people,  among  success  and  flattery  and  awakening 
ambition.  But  in  this  disappointment  there  is  no 
anger,  no  bitterness,  no  reproach.  She  is  still  to 
be  his  goddess  of  stone ;  calm  and  cold,  but  never 
to  be  forgotten. 

At  twenty,  young  men  do  not  die  of  love ;  but 
I  find  that  a  fortnight  after  writing  this  he  was 
taken  seriously  ill.  During  the  winter  the  nego- 
tiations for  the  marriage  in  Paris  went  on.  It 
took  place  in  March.  In  May  he  was  pronounced 
consumptive,  and  had  to  give  up  Oxford,  and  all 
hope  of  distinction  in  the  schools  for  which  he 
had  labored,  and,  with  that,  any  plans  that  might 
have  been  entertained  for  his  distinction  in  the 
church.  And  remembering  how  his  physical  ill- 
nesses have  always  followed  upon  mental  strain  or 
grief,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  this  first  great 
calamity  of  his  life  —  how  far-reaching  cannot 
well  be  told  —  was  not  the  direct  consequence  of 
this  unhappy  love-story. 

For  nearly  two  years  he  was  dragged  about 
from  place  to  place,  and  from  doctor  to  doctor, 
in  search  of  health ;  and  thanks  to  wise  treat- 
ment, more  to  new  faces,  and  most  to  a  plucky 
determination  to  employ  himself  usefully  with  his 


A    LOVE-STORY.  7 1 

pen  and  his  pencil,  he  gradually  freed  himself 
from  the  spell ;  and  fifty  years  afterwards  could 
look  back  upon  the  story  as  a  pretty  comedy  of 
his  youthful  days.  How  pretty,  at  any  rate,  the 
actress  must  have  been,  if  we  do  not  believe  his 
own  words  and  taste,  we  can  judge  from  a  little 
side-glimpse  of  the  sequel  afforded  us  by  a  writer 
whose  connoisseurship  in  pretty  girls  we  can 
trust,  —  Mrs.  A.  Thackeray  Ritchie  ("  Harper's 
Magazine,"  March,  1 890) :  — 

"  The  writer  can  picture  to  herself  something 
of  the  charm  of  these  most  charming  sisters ;  for 
once,  by  chance  traveling  on  Lake  Leman,  she 
found  herself  watching  a  lady  who  sat  at  the 
steamer's  end,  a  beautiful  young  woman,  all 
dressed  in  pale  gray,  with  a  long  veil  floating  on 
the  wind,  who  sat  motionless  and  absorbed,  look- 
ing toward  the  distant  hills,  not  unlike  the  vision 
of  some  guiding,  wistful  Ariel  at  the  prow,  while 
the  steamer  sped  its  way  between  the  banks. 
The  story  of  the  French  sisters  has  gained  an 
added  interest  from  the  remembrance  of  those 
dark,  lovely  eyes,  that  charming  countenance  ;  for 
afterwards,  when  I  knew  her  better,  the  lady  told 
me  that  her  mother  had  been  a  Domecq,  and  had 
once  lived  with  her  sisters  in  Mr.  Ruskin's  home. 
Circumstances  had  divided  them  in  after  days,  but 
all  the  children  of  the  family  had  been  brought 
up  to  know  Mr.  Ruskin  by  name,  and  to  love 
and  appreciate  his  books.  The  lady  sent  him 
many  messages  by  me,  which  I  delivered  in  after 


72         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

days,  when,  alas  !  it  was  from  Mr.  Ruskin  him- 
self I  learned  that  the  beautiful  traveler  —  Isa- 
belle,  he  called  her  —  had  passed  away  before  her 
time  to  those  distant  hills  where  all  our  journeys 
end." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

KATA    PHUSIN. 
(1836-1838.) 

"  And  you,  painter,  who  are  desirous  of  great  practice,  understand,  that 
if  you  do  not  rest  it  on  the  good  foundation  of  Nature,  you  will  labor 
with  little  honor  and  less  profit :  and  if  you  do  it  on  a  good  ground,  your 
works  will  be  many  and  good,  to  your  great  honor  and  advantage." 

Leonardo  da  Vinci. 

Love  in  idleness  was  no  part  of  the  Heme  Hill 
programme.  Beside  the  play  writing  and  song- 
composing,  which  was  not  exactly  work,  although 
it  used  up  much  time  and  energy,  and  over  and 
above  the  lectures  at  King's  College,  already 
mentioned,  John  Ruskin  entered  in  1836  upon  a 
new  and  more  serious  phase  of  his  study  of  art. 

In  Switzerland  and  Italy,  during  the  autumn 
of  1835,  he  had  made  a  great  many  drawings, 
carefully  outlined  in  pencil  or  pen,  on  gray  paper, 
and  sparsely  touched  with  body  color,  in  direct 
imitation  of  the  Prout  lithographs.  Prout's  origi- 
nal colored  sketches  he  had  seen,  no  doubt,  in 
the  exhibition ;  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
thought  of  imitating  them,  for  his  work  in  this 
kind  was  all  intended  to  be  for  illustration.  The 
"  Italy  "  vignettes  likewise,  with  all  their  inspira- 
tion, suggested  to  him  only  pen-etching ;  he  was 


74         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

hardly  conscious  that  somewhere  there  existed 
the  tiny,  delicious  colored  pictures  that  Turner 
had  made  for  the  engraver.  Still,  now  that  he 
could  draw  really  well,  his  father,  who  painted  in 
water  colors  himself,  wished  him  to  be  promoted 
to  a  color  box ;  and,  as  he  always  got  the  best  of 
everything,  went  straight  to  the  President  of  the 
Old  Water  Color  Society,  and  engaged  him  for 
the  usual  course  of  half  a  dozen  lessons  at  a 
guinea.  Copley  Fielding,  besides  being  presi- 
dent, could  draw  mountains  as  nobody  else  but 
Turner  could,  in  water  color;  he  had  enough 
mystery  and  poetry  to  interest  the  younger  Rus- 
kin,  and  enough  resemblance  to  ordinary  views 
of  nature  to  please  the  elder. 

So  they  both  went  to  Newman  Street  to  his 
painting  -  room,  and  John  worked  through  the 
course,  and  a  few  extra  lessons ;  but,  after  all, 
found  that  he  could  no  more  pick  up  this  trick 
from  a  teacher  than  he  could  formerly  pick  up 
the  orthodox  method  of  reading  and  writing. 
The  stronger  a  man's  individuality  is,  the  less  he 
is  likely,  and  even  able,  to  comply  with  common 
means  and  aims.  Such  a  man  sometimes  thinks 
it  very  stupid  in  himself  that  he  cannot  do  what 
other  people  find  so  easy :  Wagner,  for  instance, 
always  hoping  to  succeed,  next  time,  in  hitting 
the  popular  taste ;  and  Beethoven,  laboring  in 
vain  to  throw  some  lightness  into  his  great  over- 
ture, to  please  the  manager  of  the  opera.  So 
Ruskin  must   be  himself,   or  nothing;    and   his 


KATA    PHUSIN.  75 

way  of  work  remained  for  him  to  devise  for  him- 
self, by  following  at  first  the  highest  masters 
he  knew,  and  by  superadding  to  the  lessons  he 
could  get  from  them  an  expression  of  his  own 
sincere  feeling. 

One  such  lesson  was  given  in  the  Royal  Acad- 
emy Exhibition  of  1836,  when  Turner  showed 
the  first  striking  examples  of  his  later  style  in 
the  Juliet  and  her  Nurse,  the  Mercury  and  Argus, 
and  the  Rome  from  Mount  Av*entine.  The 
strange  idealism,  the  unusualness,  the  mystery  of 
these  pictures,  united  with  evidence  of  intense 
significance  and  subtle  observation,  appealed  to 
young  Ruskin  as  it  appealed  to  few  other  specta- 
tors. Here  was  Venice  as  he  saw  her  in  his  own 
dreams ;  here  were  mountains  and  skies  such  as 
he  had  watched  and  studied,  and  attempted  to 
describe  in  his  own  poems.  It  was  not  for  no- 
thing that  he  had  been  devoted  to  Nature,  that 
he  had  tried  to  set  down  her  phenomena  in  writ- 
ing, and  to  represent  her  forms  with  severe 
draughtsmanship;  that  he  had  studied  the  geol- 
ogy of  mountains  as  well  as  the  poetry  of  them. 
In  Turner's  work  he  saw  both  sides  of  his  own 
character  reflected,  both  aspects  of  Nature  re- 
corded. It  was  not  the  mere  matter-of-fact  map 
of  the  place,  which  would  have  appealed  to 
merely  matter-of-fact  people,  interested  in  science. 
Nor  was  it  simply  a  vague  Miltonian  imagina- 
tion, which  would  have  appealed  to  the  mere 
sentimentalist.     But    Turner   had   been   able   to 


76         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF  JOHN    RUSKIN. 

show,  and  young  Ruskin  to  appreciate,  the  com- 
bination of  two  attitudes  with  regard  to  Nature : 
the  scientific,  inquisitive  about  her  facts,  her 
detail ;  and  the  poetical,  expatiating  in  effect,  in 
breadth  and  mystery. 

There  may  have  been  other  people  who  appreci- 
ated these  pictures :  if  so,  they  said  nothing.  On 
the  contrary,  public  opinion  regretted  this  change 
for  the  worse  in  its  old  favorite,  the  draughtsman 
of  Oxford  colleges,  the  painter  of  shipwrecks  and 
castles.  And  "  Blackwood's  Magazine,"  which 
the  Ruskins,  as  Edinburgh  people  and  admirers 
of  Christopher  North,  read  with  respect,  spoke 
about  Turner,  in  a  review  of  the  picture  season, 
with  that  freedom  of  speech  which  Scotch  review- 
ers claim  as  a  heritage  from  the  days  of  Jeffrey. 
Young  Ruskin  at  once  dashed  off  an  answer, 
indignant  not  so  much  that  Turner  was  attacked, 
but  that  he  should  have  been  attacked  by  a  writer 
whose  article  showed  that  he  was  not  a  quali- 
fied critic  of  art,  and  that  this  should  have  been 
printed  in  "  Maga." 

The  critic  had  found  that  Turner  was  "  out  of 
nature ; "  Ruskin  tried  to  show  that  the  pictures 
were  full  of  facts,  studied  on  the  spot  and  thor- 
oughly understood,  but  treated  with  poetical 
license ;  Turner  being,  like  Shakespeare,  an  ideal- 
ist, in  the  sense  of  allowing  himself  a  free  treat- 
ment of  his  material.  The  critic  pronounced 
Turner's  color  bad,  his  execution  neglected,  and 
his    chiaroscuro   childish ;    in    answer   to    which 


KATA    PHUSIN.  77 

Ruskin  explained  that  Turner's  reasoned  system 
was  to  represent  light  and  shade  by  the  contrast 
of  warm  and  cold  color,  rather  than  by  the  op- 
position of  white  and  black  which  other  painters 
used;  he  denied  that  his  execution  was  other 
than  his  aims  necessitated,  and  maintained  that 
the  critic  had  no  right  to  force  his  cut  and  dried 
academic  rules  of  composition  on  a  great  gen- 
ius ;  at  the  same  time  admitting  that  "  the  faults 
of  Turner  are  numerous,  and  perhaps  more  egre- 
gious than  those  of  any  other  great  existing 
artist;  but  if  he  has  greater  faults,  he  has  also 
greater  beauties. 

"  His  imagination  is  Shakespearean  in  its 
mightiness.  Had  the  scene  of  Juliet  and  her 
Nurse  risen  up  before  the  mind  of  a  poet,  and 
been  described  in  '  words  that  burn,'  it  had  been 
the  admiration  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Many-colored 
mists  are  floating  above  the  distant  city,  but 
such  mists  as  you  might  imagine  to  be  ethereal 
spirits,  souls  of  the  mighty  dead  breathed  out  of 
the  tombs  of  Italy  into  the  blue  of  her  bright 
heaven,  and  wandering  in  vague  and  infinite 
glory  around  the  earth  that  they  have  loved.  In- 
stinct with  the  beauty  of  uncertain  light,  they 
move  and  mingle  among  the  pale  stars,  and  rise 
up  into  the  brightness  of  the  illimitable  heaven, 
whose  soft,  sad  blue  eye  gazes  down  into  the  deep 
waters  of  the  sea  forever,  —  that  sea  whose  mo- 
tionless and  silent  transparency  is  beaming  with 
phosphor  light,  that  emanates  out  of  its  sapphire 


78         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

serenity  like  bright  dreams  breathed  into  the  spirit 
of  a  deep  sleep.  And  the  spires  of  the  glorious 
city  rise  indistinctly  bright  into  those  living  mists, 
like  pyramids  of  pale  fire  from  some  vast  altar ; 
and  amidst  the  glory  of  the  dream,  there  is,  as  it 
were,  the  voice  of  a  multitude  entering  by  the  eye, 
arising  from  the  stillness  of  the  city  like  the 
summer  wind  passing  over  the  leaves  of  the  forest, 
when  a  murmur  is  heard  amidst  their  multitudes. 

"  This,  O  Maga,  is  the  picture  which  your 
critic  has  pronounced  to  be  like  '  models  of  dif- 
ferent parts  of  Venice,  streaked  blue  and  white, 
and  thrown  into  a  flour-tub  ' !  " 

Before  sending  this  reply  to  the  editor  of 
"  Blackwood,"  as  had  been  intended,  it  was 
thought  only  right  that  Turner  should  be  con- 
sulted, as  he  was  the  person  most  interested. 
The  MS.  was  inclosed  to  his  address  in  London, 
with  a  courteous  note  from  Mr.  John  James  Rus- 
kin,  asking  his  permission  to  publish.  Turner 
replied,  expressing  the  scorn  which  such  a  man 
would  be  sure  to  feel  for  anonymous  attacks  ;  and 
jestingly  hinting  that  the  art  critics  of  the  old 
Scotch  school  found  their  "  meal-tub  "  in  danger 
from  his  "  flour-tub :  "  but  "  he  never  moved  in 
such  matters,"  so  he  sent  on  the  MS.  to  Mr. 
Munro,  of  Novar,  who  had  bought  the  picture. 

Thus  the  essay  was  lost,  until  another  copy 
turned  up  among  old  papers,  enabling  us  to  add 
an  important  link  to  the  history  of  a  great  enter- 
prise ;  for  this  was  the  "  first  chapter,"  the  germ 


KATA    PHUSIN.  79 

of  "  Modern  Painters,"  and  indeed  of  all  Mr.  Rus- 
kin's  work  as  an  exponent  of  painting. 

Turner  was  quite  right  in  silencing  his  young 
champion.  The  essay,  though  extremely  clever 
for  a  boy  of  seventeen,  was  naturally  immature, 
and  it  would  have  done  little  except  prolong  the 
discussion,  for  which  John  Ruskin  was  hardly 
ripe.  And  then,  instead  of  "  Modern  Painters,"  we 
should  have  had  only  a  few  unsatisfactory  pas- 
sages of  repartee  in  the  pages  of  forgotten  re- 
views. Turner  did  not  even  ask  to  see  his  young 
champion,  for  he  was  shy  of  the  world,  always 
either  overworking  himself  or  seeking  violent  re- 
laxation ;  and  he  did  not  like  the  sort  of  people 
who  talked  about  art,  even  when  they  compli- 
mented him.  It  is  always  futile  discussing  what 
might  have  been :  if  Turner  had  taken  the  young 
writer  kindly  and  frankly  by  the  hand,  he  might 
have  saved  him  from  many  errors  both  about  him- 
self and  about  art ;  but  perhaps,  most  likely,  the 
greater  and  weightier  individuality  would  have 
crushed  or  bent  the  younger  and  more  pliable ; 
and  instead  of  a  Turner  and  a  Ruskin,  we  should 
have  had  only  a  Turner  and  his  biographer. 

Ten  days  or  so  after  this  episode  John  Ruskin 
was  matriculated  at  Oxford.  He  tells  the  story 
of  his  first  appearance  as  a  gownsman  in  one  of 
those  gossiping  letters  in  verse  which  show  his 
improvisational  humorous  talent  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage :  — x 


80         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

"  A  night,  a  day  past  o'er  —  the  time  drew  near,  —  ' 
The  morning  came  —  I  felt  a  little  queer ; 
Came  to  the  push ;  paid  some  tremendous  fees ; 
Past ;  and  was  capped  and  gowned  with  marvelous  ease. 
Then  went  to  the  Vice-Chancellor  to  swear 
Not  to  wear  boots,  nor  cut  or  comb  my  hair 
Fantastically,  —  to  shun  all  such  sins 
As  playing  marbles  or  frequenting  inns ; 
Always  to  walk  with  breeches  black  or  brown  on ; 
When  I  go  out,  to  put  my  cap  and  gown  on ; 
With  other  regulations  of  the  sort,  meant 
For  the  just  ordering  of  my  comportment. 
Which  done,  in  less  time  than  I  can  rehearse  it,  I 
Found  myself  member  of  the  University  !  " 

In  pursuance  of  his  plan  of  getting  the  best  of 
everything,  his  father  had  chosen  the  best  college, 
as  far  as  he  knew,  and  the  best  position  in  it, 
—  that  of  gentleman  commoner.  Nowadays,  no 
doubt,  he  would  have  wished  his  son  to  be  a 
scholar  of  Balliol,  or  whatever  college  has  the 
highest  record  in  the  last  examination.  But  at 
that  time  Oxford  was  rather  the  fashionable  finish- 
ing-school for  young  gentlemen  than  the  scene 
of  intellectual  struggle  for  life  which  it  has  since 
become.  Mr.  Ruskin  hints  that  one  reason  for 
entering  him  as  gentleman  commoner  was  a  fear 
that  he  might  not  pass  the  ordinary  matriculation 
examination.  But  although  his  teaching  had  been 
desultory,  it  would  have  been  strange  if  any  col- 
lege had  refused  a  candidate  with  such  evidence 
of  brains  and  the  will  to  use  them. 

After  matriculation  he  did  not  go  into  residence 
until  January,  1837.  Part  of  the  winter  was  spent 
on  his   Newdigate,  part  on  his  "  Smalls."     The 


KATA    PHUSIN.  8 1 

long  vacation  was  passed  in  a  tour  through  the 
north  of  England,  during  which  his  advanced 
knowledge  of  art  was  shown  in  a  series  of  admir- 
able drawings,  so  Proutesque  in  manner  as  almost 
to  pass  for  the  master's  work,  except  for  traces  of 
a  strong  individuality  which  could  not  be  con- 
cealed. Their  subjects  are  chiefly  architectural, 
though  a  few  mountain  drawings  are  found  in  his 
sketch-book  for  that  summer. 

The  interest  in  ancient  and  picturesque  build- 
ings was  no  new  thing,  and  it  seems  to  have  been 
the  branch  of  art  study  which  was  chiefly  encour- 
aged by  his  father.  During  this  tour  among 
Cumberland  cottages  and  Yorkshire  abbeys,  a 
plan  was  formed  of  a  series  of  papers  on  architec- 
ture ;  perhaps  in  answer  to  an  invitation  from  Mr. 
Loudon,  who  had  started  an  architectural  maga- 
zine, and  knew  John  Ruskin  from  previous  con- 
tributions to  the  "  Magazine  of  Natural  History." 
And  so  in  the  summer  he  began  to  write  "  The 
Poetry  of  Architecture ;  or,  the  Architecture  of 
the  Nations  of  Europe  considered  in  its  associa- 
tion with  Natural  Scenery  and  National  Charac- 
ter ; "  and  the  papers  were  worked  off,  month  by 
month,  from  Oxford,  or  wherever  he  might  be, 
with  a  steadiness  that  showed  his  power  of  de- 
taching himself  from  immediate  surroundings,  like 
any  experienced  litterateur.  This  piece  of  work, 
buried  in  a  rarely  seen  periodical,  is  a  valuable 
link  in  the  development  of  his  "  Seven  Lamps ;  " 
anticipating  many  of  his  conclusions  of  later  days, 


82  THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

and  exhibiting  his  literary  style  as  very  near  ma- 
turity. It  deals  chiefly  with  the  countries  he  had 
visited,  —  the  English  Lakeland,  France,  Switzer- 
land, and  North  Italy ;  but  some  little  notice  of 
Spain  suggests  occasional  collaboration  with  his 
father. 

He  begins  by  deploring  the  want  of  taste  in 
modern  building  —  the  "  Swiss  chalets  "  in  subur- 
ban brickfields,  and  the  Regent's  Park  boxes  on 
Derwentwater ;  and  he  shows  that  it  is  the  public 
who  are  to  blame,  for  though  utility  is  the  first 
requirement,  it  does  not  preclude  taste.  Then  he 
contrasts,  with  something  of  the  power  of  analysis 
which  he  afterwards  displayed,  the  snug  neatness 
of  south-country  English  cottages,  with  the  histor- 
ical and  sentimental  interest  of  dilapidated  French 
farms,  and  the  pensive  poetry  of  half-ruined  Italian 
country-houses.  He  shows  how  each  style  arises 
naturally  from  the  requirements  and  circumstances 
of  the  inhabitants,  and  therefore  is  in  harmony 
with  the  surroundings.  Still  more  perfect  exam- 
ples are  the  cottages  of  the  Alps  and  the  Cum- 
brian hills.  He  is  not  so  kind  to  the  Swiss  and 
their  chalets  as  one  might  expect ;  but  he  de- 
scribes the  rugged  homesteads  of  the  Lake  district 
with  affection.  "  The  uncultivated  mountaineer 
of  Cumberland  has  no  '  taste,'  and  no  idea  what 
architecture  means;  he  never  thinks  of  what  is 
right,  or  what  is  beautiful ;  but  he  builds  what  is 
most  adapted  to  his  purpose,  and  most  easily 
erected.     By  suiting  the  building  to  the  uses  of 


KATA    PHUSIN.  83 

his  own  life,  he  gives  it  humility;  and  by  raising 
it  with  the  nearest  material,  adapts  it  to  its  situa- 
tion.    That  is  all  that  is  required." 

He  proceeds  to  formulate  a  few  principles  by 
which  a  builder  of  cottages,  conscious  of  what  he 
is  doing,  should  be  guided.  In  "  A  Chapter  on 
Chimneys"  he  explains  why  they  should  not  be 
ornamented,  holding  tight  to  the  notion  of  the 
development  of  beauty  from  use,  and  illustrating 
with  a  sketch  of  "  an  old  building  called  Coniston 
Hall." 

The  second  half  of  the  series  discusses  the 
Villa,  that  is,  the  gentleman's  country-house  as 
distinct  from  the  cottage  and  from  the  castle  or 
palace.  He  describes  the  shores  of  Windermere 
with  sarcastic  humor ;  and  contrasts  the  villas  of 
Como,  slyly  quoting  —  or  misquoting  —  a  couple 
of  lines  from  one  of  his  own  unpublished  poems. 
In  developing  the  subject,  he  anticipates  many  of 
his  later  views,  and  balances  the  common-sense 
utilitarianism  of  his  first  part  by  saying,  as  he  did 
in  the  "  Seven  Lamps :  "  "  The  mere  preparation 
of  convenience  is  not  architecture  in  which  man 
can  take  pride,  or  ought  to  take  delight ;  but  the 
high  and  ennobling  part  of  architecture  is  that  of 
giving  to  buildings  whose  parts  are  determined 
by  necessity  such  forms  and  colors  as  shall  delight 
the  mind."  And  he  concludes  by  expounding  at 
length  the  principles  that  should  guide  the  builder 
of  country-houses,  insisting  on  their  thoughtful 
adaptation  to  the  scenery  and  position,  as  opposed 


84         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

to  the  mere  following  of  arbitrary  style  and  blind 
fashion. 

The  papers  terminate  with  the  discontinuance 
of  the  magazine,  which  ran  for  those  two  years 
only.  They  are  bright  and  amusing,  full  of  pretty 
description  and  shrewd  thoughts.  They  parade  a 
good  deal  of  classical  learning  and  traveled  expe- 
rience; so  much  so  that  no  doubt  the  readers  of 
the  magazine  took  their  author  for  some  dilet- 
tante don  at  Oxford;  and  the  editor  did  not 
wish  the  illusion  to  be  dispelled.  So  John  Rus- 
kin  had  to  choose  a  nom  de  plume.  He  called 
himself  Kata  Phusin  ("  according  to  nature "), 
for  he  had  begun  to  read  some  Aristotle  after 
his  "  Smalls."  No  phrase  would  have  better  ex- 
pressed his  point  of  view,  that  of  common  sense 
extended  by  experience,  and  confirmed  by  the 
appeal  to  matters  of  fact,  rather  than  to  any  au- 
thority, or  tradition,  or  committee  of  taste,  or 
abstract  principles. 

While  these  papers  were  in  process  of  pub- 
lication Kata  Phusin  plunged  into  his  first  con- 
troversy. Mr.  Arthur  Parsey  had  published  a 
treatise  on  "  Perspective  Rectified,"  with  a  new 
discovery  that  was  to  upset  all  previous  practice. 
He  said,  in  effect,  that  when  you  look  at  a  tower, 
the  top  is  farther  from  the  eye  than  the  bottom ; 
therefore  it  must  look  narrower ;  therefore  it 
should  be  drawn  so.  This  was  "  Parsey's  Conver- 
gence of  Perpendiculars,"  according  to  which  ver- 
tical lines  should  have  a  vanishing  point,  even 


KATA   PHUSIN.  85 

though  they  are  assumed  to  be  parallel  to  the 
plane  of  the  picture. 

He  had  been  discussed  by  one,  and  ridiculed 
by  another,  of  the  contributors  to  the  magazine, 
when  Kata  Phusin  joined  in,  with  the  remark 
that  the  convergence  is  perceptible  only  when  we 
stand  too  close  to  the  tower  to  draw  it  (when,  of 
course,  the  verticals  are  not  parallel  to  the  plane 
of  the  picture) ;  and  that  we  never  can  draw  it  at 
all  until  we  are  so  far  away  that  the  eye  is  prac- 
tically equidistant  from  all  parts,  top  and  bottom. 
You  see  that  in  reflections,  too,  he  said ;  the  ver- 
tical lines  do  converge,  when  your  eye  ranges 
round  the  horizon,  and  from  zenith  to  nadir ;  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  a  picture  we  include  so 
small  a  piece  of  the  whole  field  of  vision  that  the 
convergence  is  practically  reduced  to  nil. 

A  writer  signing  himself  "  Q."  gravely  reviews 
the  situation,  and  gives  the  palm  to  Kata  Phusin ; 
yet,  he  says,  the  convergence  is  there.  To  which 
Kata  Phusin  answers  that  of  course  it  is,  and  all 
artists  know  it,  but  they  know  also  that  the  limited 
angle  of  their  picture's  scope  makes  away  with  the 
difficulty. 

Parsey  was  not  satisfied.  Kata  Phusin  appeals 
to  observation.  He  says  he  is  looking  out  of  his 
window  at  one  of  the  most  noble  buildings  in 
Oxford,  and  the  vertical  lines  of  it  do  fall  exactly 
on  the  sashes  of  his  window  frame.  He  suggests 
a  new  line  of  defense  :  that  to  see  a  picture  prop- 
erly, the  eye  must  be  opposite  the  point  of  sight, 


86         THE    LIFE   AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

and  the  angle  of  vision  is  the  same  for  the  picture, 
placed  at  the  right  distance,  as  for  the  actual 
scene;  so  whatever  convergence  there  is  in  the 
scene,  there  is  also  in  the  picture,  when  rightly 
viewed.  And  so  the  discussion  dragged  on;  Kata 
Phusin  appealing  to  common  sense  and  common 
practice  as  against  the  mathematicians  and  the 
theorists ;  and  the  editor  gave  him  the  last  word 
to  conclude  the  magazine. 

None  of  the  disputants  were  bold  enough  to 
remark  that  the  great  science  of  perspective  was 
after  all  only  an  abstraction ;  that  the  "  plane  of 
the  picture  "  is  a  mere  assumption,  made  for  the 
convenience  of  geometrical  draughtsmen ;  and 
that  if  you  draw  what  you  really  see,  you  would 
draw  the  top  of  a  tower  broader  than  its  base  !  — 
for  such  is  the  position  of  the  question  in  its  latest 
phase,  as  discussed  with  curious  experiment  and 
improved  knowledge  of  optics,  by  Dr.  P.  H.  Emer- 
son and  Mr.  Goodall,  in  a  recent  tract. 

During  this  controversy,  and  just  before  the 
summer  tour  of  1838  to  Scotland,  John  Ruskin 
was  introduced  to  Miss  Charlotte  Withers,  a 
young  lady  who  was  as  fond  of  music  as  he  was 
of  drawing.  They  discussed  their  favorite  studies 
with  eagerness ;  and  to  settle  the  matter,  he  wrote 
a  long  essay  on  "  The  Comparative  Advantages 
of  the  Studies  of  Music  and  Painting,"  in  which 
he  sets  painting  as  a  means  of  recreation  and  of 
education  far  above  music.  He  allows  to  music 
a  greater  power  of  stirring  emotion,  but  finds 


STIRLING    PALACE    AND    CHURCH 
By  John  Ruskin,  1838 


KATA    PHUSIN.  87 

that  power  strongest  in  proportion  as  the  art  is 
diminished  ;  so  that  from  the  y£olian  harp  is  the 
most  touching  of  all  melody,  and  next  to  it,  owing 
partly-  to  associations,  the  Alp-horn.  "  The  shep- 
herds on  the  high  Alps  live  for  months  in  perfect 
solitude,  not  perhaps  seeing  the  face  of  a  human 
being  for  weeks  together.  Among  these  men 
there  is  a  very  beautiful  custom,  —  the  manner 
in  which  they  celebrate  their  evening  devotions. 
When  the  sun  is  just  setting,  and  the  peaks  of 
eternal  snow  become  tinted  of  a  pale  but  bright 
rose-color  by  his  dying  beams,  the  shepherd  who 
is  highest  upon  the  mountains  takes  his  horn,  and 
sounds  through  it  a  few  simple  but  melodious 
notes  signifying  '  Glory  be  to  God.'  Far  and  wide 
on  the  pure  air  floats  the  sound.  The  nearest 
shepherd  hears,  and  replies ;  and  from  man  to 
man,  over  the  illimitable  deserts  of  a  hundred 
hills,  passes  on  the  voice  of  worship.  Then  there 
is  a  silence,  —  a  deep,  dead  silence.  Every  head 
is  uncovered  ;  every  knee  bowed.  And  from  the 
stillness  of  the  solitude  rises  the  voice  of  suppli- 
cation, heard  by  God  only.  Again  the  highest 
shepherd  sounds  through  his  horn, '  Thanks  be  to 
God.'  Again  is  the  sound  taken  up,  and  passed 
on  from  man  to  man  along  the  mountains.  It 
dies  away ;  the  twilight  comes  dimly  down,  and 
every  one  betakes  himself  to  repose." 

To  the  higher  forms  of  music  he  awards  no 
such  power  of  compelling  emotion,  and  finds  no 
intellectual  interest  in  them  to  make  up  for  the 


88         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

loss ;  whereas  in  painting,  the  higher  the  art,  the 
stronger  the  appeal  both  to  the  senses  and  to  the 
intellect.  He  describes  an  ideal  Crucifixion  by 
Vandyck  or  Guido,  insisting  on  the  complexity 
of  emotions  and  trains  of  thought  roused  by  such 
a  picture.  He  goes  into  ecstasies  over  a  typical 
Madonna  of  Raphael ;  discusses  David's  Ho- 
ratii,  and  concludes  that  even  in  landscape  this 
double  office  of  painting,  at  once  artistic  and  liter- 
ary, gives  it  a  supremacy  to  which  music  has  no 
claim.  As  a  practical  means  of  education,  he 
finds  little  difficulty  in  showing  that  "  with  regard 
to  drawing,  the  labor  and  time  required  is  the 
same  [as  for  music],  but  the  advantages  gained 
will,"  he  thinks,  "  be  found  considerably  superior. 
These  are  four:  namely  (i)  the  power  of  appreci- 
ating fine  pictures ;  (2)  the  agreeable  and  interest- 
ing occupation  of  many  hours ;  (3)  the  habit  of 
quick  observation,  and  exquisite  perception  of  the 
beauties  of  Nature;  and  lastly, the  power  of  amus- 
ing and  gratifying  others." 

In  the  examples  chosen,  we  see  the  boy  who  ad- 
mired as  yet  without  full  discrimination ;  in  the 
line  of  thought  taken,  we  see  the  man.  He  never 
was  a  musician  :  he  learned  to  play  and  sing  a  lit- 
tle, and  he  has  composed  a  few  pretty  little  melo- 
dies as  an  amusement  of  his  later  years.  He  takes 
great  delight  in  ballad  singing  and  in  the  simpler 
forms  of  old  operatic  music.  But  he  has  no  ear 
for  the  higher  efforts  of  the  art ;  is  not  what  we 
call  musical.     But  what  do  we  ask  ?     Surely  not 


KATA    PHUSIN.  89 

that  one  man  should  combine  in  himself  every 
possible  power,  —  for  that  would  make  but  a  neu- 
tral mixture. 

As  a  forecast  of  his  art  criticism  this  essay  is 
important.  We  see  him  giving  scrupulous  atten- 
tion to  the  demands  of  the  artistic  side,  but  more 
honestly  interested,  then,  in  the  literary  subject. 
It  was  his  double  sympathy  that  enabled  him  in 
later  years  on  the  one  hand  to  introduce  the 
public  to  the  aims  of  the  artist,  and  on  the  other 
hand  to  press  upon  artists  the  admission  that  the 
public,  after  all,  are  right  in  demanding  that,  as  a 
picture  sets  out  with  some  suggestion  of  repre- 
senting nature,  the  representation  ought  to  be  as 
complete  as  it  can  be.  There  will  always  be  peo- 
ple who  can  see  one  side  of  the  question  only ; 
and  such  people  will  always  think  Ruskin  incon- 
sistent. 

Already  at  nineteen,  then,  we  see  him  as  a 
writer  on  art,  not  full-fledged,  but  sturdily^aking 
his  own  line  and  making  up  his  mind  upon  the 
first  great  questions.  As  Kata  Phusin  he  was 
attracting  some  notice.  Towards  the  end  of  1838, 
a  question  arose  as  to  the  best  site  for  the  pro- 
posed Scott  Memorial  at  Edinburgh ;  and  a  writer 
in  the  "Architectural  Magazine"  quotes  Kata 
Phusin  as  the  authority  in  such  matters,  saying 
that  it  was  obvious,  after  those  papers  of  his,  that 
design  and  site  should  be  simultaneously  consid- 
ered. On  which  the  editor  "  begs  the  favor  of 
Kata  Phusin  to  let  our  readers  have   his  opinion 


90         THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

on  the  subject,  which  we  certainly  think  of  con- 
siderable importance." 

And  so  he  discusses  the  question  of  monuments 
in  general,  and  of  this  one  in  particular,  in  a  long 
paper ;  unsatisfactorily  coming  to  no  very  decided 
opinion ;  preferring,  on  the  whole,  a  statue  group 
with  a  colossal  Scott  on  a  rough  pedestal,  to  be 
placed  on  Salisbury  Crags,  "  where  the  range  gets 
low  and  broken  towards  the  north,  at  about  the 
height  of  St.  Anthony's  Chapel."  But  he  finds 
that,  after  all,  the  climate  and,  more  effectually, 
the  sentiment  of  the  north  militate  against  this 
kind  of  monument. 

We  often  think  we  have  nicely  disposed  of  our 
idealists  when  we  have  asked  them  to  practice 
what  they  preach,  to  better  what  they  criticise. 
And  against  Mr.  Ruskin  it  has  been  urged,  time 
and  again,  that  his  plans  are  fine,  but  impracti- 
cable. We  see  him  here  already  stopped  on  the 
threshold  by  his  inability  to  put  his  own  princi- 
ples into  action.  When  he  is  asked,  "  Well,  now, 
and  what  are  we  to  do  ?"  he  replies  vaguely,  and 
in  general  terms,  or  proposes  something  that  won't 
work !  The  reason  is  simple  enough.  An  ideal, 
to  be  an  ideal,  is  something  out  of  reach ;  some- 
thing to  aim  at,  not  as  yet  to  attain.  The  rest  of 
us  are  content  to  be  opportunists,  to  do  the  best 
we  can  with  the  materials  we  have.  He  has  all  his 
life  been  an  idealist ;  his  counsels  are  counsels  of 
perfection.  In  art,  in  ethics,  all  the  various  de- 
partments of  life  that  he  has  touched,  his  work  has 


KATA    PHUSIN.  9 1 

been  to  set  the  standard  higher,  not  to  drag  it 
down  within  easy  reach.  Without  such  men 
among  us,  should  we  not  be  like  wanderers  on 
a  waste  and  dangerous  moorland,  making  sure, 
indeed,  of  each  next  step,  but  to  what  goal  tend- 
ing ? 


CHAPTER  VII. 

SIR    ROGER    NEWDIGATE'S    PRIZE. 

(1837-1839.) 

'Cs  oi  irdtdes  &€1<tSop'  d  8'  aiw6\os  55'  ay6pevev' 
'A5u  ri  rh  ffrS/xa  rol,  teal  itplfiepos  S>  Aacpvi  <pa>vb.' 
AtxaSeo  rcls  oipiyyas'  ivlicriffa.s  yhp  aelSwv. 

Theocritus. 

Oxford  in  the  Thirties  has  been  often  de- 
scribed. It  was  beginning  to  awake  from  the 
torpor  of  its  traditional  "  classic  groves "  and 
cloistered  erudition,  and  to  take  upon  itself  the 
burden  of  educating  England.  It  was  stirring 
especially  in  two  directions:  in  religion  and  in 
physical  science.  The  movement  which  created 
the  modern  High  Church  and  Broad  Church  par- 
ties was  already  afoot ;  and  it  would  be  natural  to 
suppose  that  any  active  mind,  thrown  into  the 
thick  of  the  fight,  would  be  sure  to  take  a  side, 
and  share  the  experiences  of  Newman  or  Pusey, 
Pattison  or  Clough. 

But  in  all  these  matters  John  Ruskin  the 
undergraduate  was  a  Gallic  It  seems  strange 
that  a  man  who  had  been  brought  up  on  constant 
Bible-reading  and  sermon-hearing,  who  was  des- 
tined for  the  church,  whose  eventual  mission  has 


SIR    ROGER   NEWDIGATES    PRIZE.  93 

been  to  refer  everything  to  the  language  and 
principles  of  religion,  —  it  seems  strange  that  he, 
of  all  people,  should  have  looked  on  unmoved 
while  great  questions  were  being  agitated,  con- 
sciences wrung,  and  souls  torn  asunder  between 
faith  and  doubt. 

But  there  were  reasons  why  he  was  not  drawn 
into  the  struggle.  He  was  pious;  and  yet  his 
piety  was  not  an  affair  of  speculation,  but  of 
habit,  a  branch  of  ethical  practice.  He  had  no 
"  call "  to  doubt ;  he  observed  his  religious  duties, 
and  went  on  his  way.  During  his  career  at  Ox- 
ford, also,  his  mother  lived  near  him,  in  the  High 
Street,  and  he  saw  her  constantly.  Nothing 
keeps  up  a  habit  so  much  as  intercourse  with  per- 
sons who  have  been  accustomed  to  enforce  it. 
And  it  was  only  when  he  got  away  from  his  par- 
ents' company,  as  we  shall  hereafter  find,  that  he 
wandered  from  his  parents'  religion. 

In  the  question,  as  between  church  and  church, 
he  accepted  what  he  had  been  taught,  and  all  the 
more  easily  because  he  had  not  been  fostered  in 
any  of  the  narrower  sects,  though  always  in  the 
strictest  Protestantism.  He  had  not  been  fettered 
even  to  the  Church  of  England ;  for  the  Scottish 
traditions  of  his  family,  partly  descended  from  the 
hereditary  keepers  of  the  "  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant,"  the  Tweddales,  and  partly  from  old- 
time  Jacobites,  saved  him  from  any  exclusive 
devotion  to  one  party,  or  even  nationality,  in  reli- 
gion.    He  had  seen  the  good  sides  of  more  than 


94  THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

one  school  of  Protestant  Christianity,  and  their 
weak  points  as  well.  So  that  an  ecclesiastical 
contest  had  no  interest  for  him ;  he  could  take 
neither  side. 

But  the  other  movement,  then  less  heard  of, 
was  destined  to  make  a  greater  impression  on  the 
world.  The  beginning  of  modern  Physical  Sci- 
ence was  not  confined  to  Oxford,  but  it  was  well 
represented  there.  And  it  happened  that  at 
Christ  Church  there  were  two  leading  workers  in 
the  cause :  among  the  elder  men,  Dr.  Buckland, 
the  veteran  geologist;  and  among  the  younger 
men,  Henry  W.  Acland,  who  was  already  begin- 
ning his  life's  work  in  physiology. 

The  latter,  so  the  story  runs,  while  crossing 
the  Quad  one  day,  spied  a  noble  lord  riding  a 
freshman  round  the  place,  to  the  great  amusement 
and  gratification  of  other  noble  lords,  the  senior 
gentlemen  commoners.  The  freshman  took  his 
initiatory  bullying  with  good  nature ;  and  though 
he  had  never  been  to  school,  to  speak  of,  and 
though  he  was  too  given  to  reading  and  writing, 
and  though  his  father  was  only  a  wine  merchant, 
he  soon  won  a  place  in  the  miniature  republic, 
where,  while  ordinary  advantages  of  course  have 
their  weight,  still  the  best  man  is  more  frankly 
recognized  than  in  the  bigger  world.  And  if  our 
freshman  had  found  no  other  company  at  Christ 
Church  but  this,  it  would  still  have  been  good  for 
him  to  be  there.  As  a  self-educated  dilettante  in 
art  and  a  bourgeois  reformer  of  society  he  could 


SIR    ROGER    NEWDIGATE  S    PRIZE.  95 

never  have  attained  that  breadth  of  outlook,  that 
freedom  of  expression,  which  he  got  by  mixing 
with  all  classes,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest ; 
gauging  all  tastes,  testing  all  pretensions,  compar- 
ing all  ideals. 

But  to  meet  a  man  like  Mr.  Acland,  to  be 
placed  at  the  outset  in  necessary  comradeship  with 
so  fine  a  nature,  was  a  true  stroke  of  luck ;  with- 
out which  young  Ruskin  would  have  been  left  to 
fight  his  way  alone  in  an  uncongenial  world.  He 
was  too  able  a  man  to  be  neglected,  but  too 
thoughtful  to  be  content  with  merely  aristocratic 
and  fashionable  companions.  If  he  had  not 
found  real  comrades  in  his  own  college  and  at  his 
own  table  in  Hall,  he  might  have  been  obliged  to 
seek  them  elsewhere,  to  have  become,  perhaps,  the 
hero  of  an  inferior  set  of  men,  which  is  the  worst 
thing  that  can  happen  to  a  clever  undergraduate. 

To  Mr.  (now  Sir)  Henry  Acland  and  Dr.  Buck- 
land,  who  took  notice  of  a  young  geologist,  and 
made  him  useful  in  drawing  diagrams  for  lectures, 
he  owed  his  first  encouragements  science.  To 
Sir  Charles  Newton,  now  famous  as  our  leading 
authority  on  classical  archaeology,  and  at  that  time 
an  undergraduate  antiquary  of  Christ  Church, 
young  Ruskin  owed  sympathy  in  his  artistic 
tastes.  So  that,  by  the  best  of  fortune,  no  side  of 
his  nature  was  left  undeveloped,  and  he  began  his 
career  as  the  junior  comrade  of  the  best  men  in 
each  walk  of  life. 

The  dons  of  his  college  were  not  interesting  to 


96         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

him,  nor  interested  in  him.  His  college  tutor, 
indeed,  the  Rev.  Walter  Browne,  remained  his 
friend ;  and  his  private  tutor,  the  Rev.  Osborne 
Gordon,  famous  for  his  scholarship,  but  still  more 
for  his  tact,  was  always  regarded  with  affectionate 
respect.  Habits  of  study  and  an  extremely  good 
memory  made  his  reading  easy  to  him.  He  was 
always  at  a  disadvantage  in  the  nicer  points  of 
classical  scholarship ;  but  he  made  up  for  that  by 
a  much  more  vivid  interest  in  the  subjects  he 
read,  —  Herodotus  and  Thucydides,  the  tragedians 
and  Aristophanes,  with  some  Plato  and  Aristotle. 
To  him  they  were  not  merely  school-books  :  they 
were  authors  and  inspirers  of  original  thought, 
which  in  the  end  is  more  valuable  than  gram- 
matical minutiae.  But,  even  so,  he  was  a  safe 
candidate  for  examinations,  and  could  have  won 
any  ordinary  success  by  mere  force  of  intelligence 
and  application,  if  his  health  had  permitted.  So 
little  was  he  overworked  by  the  usual  course  of 
reading,  that  he  had  to  look  for  other  subjects  to 
employ  his  mind  upon,  such  as  the  Kata  Phusin 
papers,  and  science.  But  the  chief  by-play  of  his 
Oxford  years  was  poetry. 

He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  win  the  Newdi-. 
gate ;  and  he  had  not  been  in  residence  a  term 
before  he  sent  in  his  first  trial  -  poem,  "  The 
Gipsies,"  —  an  essay  in  rhyme  in  the  style  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  very  well  devised  and  full  of 
neat  lines  and  passages  of  shrewd  reflection.  He 
describes   the   encampment   in   the   woods;    the 


SIR    ROGER   NEWDIGATES    PRIZE.  97 

vagrant's  feats  and  the  fortune-teller's  power,  too 
often  abused,  but  sometimes  used  for  kindly  ends. 
Then  he  turns  suddenly  to  contrast  this  beggarly 
function  of  modern  astrology  and  palmistry  with 
the  widespread  belief  in  such  things  of  old ;  and 
to  compare  the  despairing  superstition  of  the  gip- 
sies with  enlightened  faith  in 

"  That  Great  One  whose  spirit  interweaves 
The  pathless  forests  with  their  life  of  leaves ; 
And  lifts  the  lowly  blossoms,  bright  in  birth, 
Out  of  the  cold,  black,  rotting  charnel  earth ; 
Walks  on  the  moon-bewildered  waves  at  night, 
Breathes  in  the  morning  breeze,  burns  in  the  evening  light ; 
Feeds  the  young  ravens  when  they  cry ;  uplifts 
The  pale-lipped  clouds  among  the  mountain  clifts ; 
Moves  the  pale  glacier  on  its  restless  path  ; 
Lives  in  the  desert's  universal  death ; 
And  fills,  with  that  one  glance  which  none  elude, 
The  grave,  the  city,  and  the  solitude." 

And  he  concludes  by  showing  how  far  removed 
from  true  liberty  is  the  unrestrained  and  lawless 
life,  which  some  have  sentimentally  praised  and 
unreflectingly  envied  ;  in  which  he  anticipates  his 
own  doctrine  of  the  "  Seven  Lamps,"  and  his  con- 
sistent belief  that  only  in  service  is  perfect  free- 
dom to  be  found  and  used. 

This  poem  is  much  above  the  average  of  such 
exercises,  and  would  have  won  the  prize  had  it  not 
been  for  the  still  stronger  work  of  a  senior  mem- 
ber of  his  own  college,  Arthur  Penrhyn  Stanley, 
afterwards  Dean  of  Westminster.  Ruskin  was 
not  to  be  beaten,  but  with  "  a  perseverance  worthy 
of  a  better  cause  "  tried  again  and  again  until  he 


98         THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

was  successful.  We  may  be  allowed  to  regret  this 
success,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  the  time  spent 
upon  writing,  rewriting,  and  polishing  those  use- 
less essays  in  verse,  as  because  it  fixed  the  young 
poet  in  a  habit  of  treating  his  art  merely  as  an  art ; 
writing  to  order  without  waiting  for  inspiration. 
We  have  already  seen  him  supplying  verses  for  a 
picture,  —  the  Salzburg,  of  "  Friendship's  Offer- 
ing ;  "  and,  strange  as  it  may  seem  in  a  man  like 
Ruskin,  we  find  him  repeatedly  doing  the  same 
kind  of  thing,  as  in  "  The  Two  Paths "  —  the 
poem  of  that  name  —  and  "  The  Departed  Light." 
This  was  owing  partly  to  his  "  fatal  facility,"  partly 
to  his  humility  in  accepting  advice  and  meeting 
the  requirements  of  any  one  who  assumed  to  be 
his  critic  and  censor.  He  was  sincerely  anxious 
to  learn  the  art  of  literature,  to  improve  himself ; 
and  generously  ready  to  please.  So  he  laid  aside 
his  own  standards  for  those  of  his  father,  of  Mr. 
Pringle,  of  Mr.  Harrison,  of  the  Newdigate  ex- 
aminers :  a  dangerous  thing  to  do,  even  with  his 
powers.  And  he  succeeded  in  adapting  his  verse 
to  the  fashion  of  the  day  so  well  that  his  own  in- 
dividuality in  it  was  lost,  all  the  spontaneity  of  his 
earlier  work  vanished  ;  while  in  the  mean  time 
Tennyson  and  Browning  were  steering  their  own 
courses  in  sturdy  independence  toward  ultimate 
success. 

The  second  Newdigate,  "  The  Exile  of  St. 
Helena,"  though  it  treated  of  a  subject  familiar  to 
him,  was  more  stilted,  more  strained  and  unreal 


SIR    ROGER    NEWDIGATES    PRIZE.  99 

than  the  first.  This  time  the  prize  was  won  by 
his  old  schoolfellow  at  Mr.  Dale's,  Henry  Dart,  of 
Exeter  College.  He  was  at  any  rate  beaten  by  a 
friend,  and  by  a  poem  which  his  honorable  sym- 
pathy and  assistance  had  helped  to  perfect. 

The  third  try  won  it,  with  "  Salsette  and  Ele- 
phanta,"  in  which,  though  it  deals  with  scenes 
of  which  he  had  no  experience,  there  is  an  artifi- 
cial gorgeousness  of  description,  carefully  ex- 
tracted from  books  of  travel,  and  an  exaltation  of 
phrase  copied  from  the  "  best  models,"  enough  to 
justify  the  award.  No  doubt  the  examiners  were 
further  influenced  by  the  orthodoxy  of  the  closing 
passage,  which  prophesies  the  prompt  extermina- 
tion of  Brahminism  by  the  missionaries. 

In  this  poem  there  is  a  strong  tinge  of  the  hor- 
rible, which,  to  judge  from  Mr.  Ruskin's  expressed 
opinions  on  art,  we  should  hardly  suspect  ever  to 
have  been  his  taste.  But  during  all  his  boyhood 
and  youth  there  were  moments  of  weakness  when 
he  allowed  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  a  sort  of 
nightmare,  the  reaction  from  healthy  delight  in 
natural  beauty.  In  later  life  the  same  tendency 
led  him  at  times  to  brood  over  the  sufferings  of 
the  poor  and  the  crimes  of  society  until  a  too 
sensitive  brain  could  no  longer  bear  the  tension 
and  the  torture. 

But  by  that  time  he  had  learned  to  put  limits  to 
art,  and  to  refuse  the  merely  horrible  as  its  ma- 
terial. As  an  undergraduate,  however,  writing 
for  effect,  he  gave  free  rein  to  the  morbid  imagi- 


IOO      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

nations  to  which  his  unhappy  affaire  de  coeur  and 
the  mental  excitement  of  the  period  predisposed 
him.  In  his  first  year  he  was  reading  Herodotus, 
and  was  struck  —  as  who  is  not  ?  —  by  the  roman- 
tic picturesqueness  of  the  incomparable  old  chron- 
icler. Several  passages  of  Greek  history  —  the 
story  of  the  Athenian  fugitive  from  the  massacre 
at  ^gina,  and  the  death  of  Aristodemus  at 
Plataea  —  offered  telling  subjects  for  lyrical  verse ; 
the  death  of  Arion  and  the  dethronement  of 
Psammenitus  were  treated,  later,  at  length ;  but 
above  all,  the  account  of  the  Scythians,  with  their 
wild  primitive  life  and  manners,  fascinated  him. 
Instead  of  gathering  from  their  history  such  an 
idyl  as  Mr.  William  Morris  would  have  made,  he 
fixed  upon  only  the  most  gruesome  points,  —  their 
fierce  struggle  with  the  Persians,  cruelty  and  slav- 
ery, burial-rites  and  skull-goblets,  —  which  he  set 
himself  to  picture  with  ghastly  realism. 

Mr.  Harrison,  his  literary  mentor,  approved 
these  poems,  and  inserted  them  in  "  Friendship's 
Offering,"  along  with  love-songs  to  Adele.  One 
had  a  great  success  and  was  freely  copied,  —  pla- 
giarism being  then,  as  always,  the  most  favorable 
criticism  ;  and  the  preface  to  the  annual  for  1 840 
publicly  thanked  the  "  gifted  writer  "  for  his  "  valu- 
able aid."  What  with  that,  and  the  Newdigate 
just  gained,  it  surely  seemed  that  John  Ruskin  had 
found  his  vocation  at  last,  and  that  he  was  on 
the  highroad  to  reputation  as  a  poet.  But  "  the 
great  difficulty  about  making  verses,"  as  Dr.  John- 


SIR    ROGER   NEWDIGATES    PRIZE.  IOI 

son  sagely  observed,  "  is  to  know  when  you  have 
made  good  ones."  Was  there  nobody  among 
those  friends,  whose  criticism  he  anxiously  courted 
and  whose  advice  he  so  humbly  followed,  to  tell 
him  that  if  he  would  keep  clear  of  Graecisms  in 
syntax  and  Latinisms  in  etymology,1  and  if  he 
would  condescend  to  be  as  explicit  in  verse  as  he 
could  be  in  prose,  then  he  would  charm  the  world 
with  such  music  as  we  hear  in  "  The  Wreck  "  ?  — 

u  Its  masts  of  might,  its  sails  so  free 
Had  borne  the  scatheless  keel 
Through  many  a  day  of  darkened  sea, 
And  many  a  storm  of  steel. 
When  all  the  winds  were  calm,  it  met 
(With  home-returning  prore) 

With  the  lull 

Of  the  waves 
On  a  low  lee  shore. 

"  The  crest  of  the  conqueror 
On  many  a  brow  was  bright ; 
The  dew  of  many  an  exile's  eye 
Had  dimmed  the  dancing  sight. 
But  for  love,  and  for  victory, 
One  welcome  was  in  store, 

.  .  .  In  the  lull 

Of  the  waves 
On  a  low  lee  shore." 

1  To  wit,  "  the  scatheless  keel,"  for  "  the  keel  without  scathe," 
and  "prore  "  for  "prow."  The  subject  of  the  song  is  obscure  until, 
on  rereading,  one  sees  some  great  Indiaman,  homeward  bound 
with  troops  aboard,  striking  an  unknown  rock  and  sinking  with  all 
hands,  in  sight  of  shore. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    BROKEN    CHAIN. 
(1840-1841.) 

"  But  never  more  the  same  two  sister  pearls 
Ran  down  the  silken  thread  to  kiss  each  other 
On  her  white  neck ;  — so  is  it  with  this  rhyme." 

Tennyson. 

"  When  all  the  seas  were  calm ;  " —  so  it  seemed 
to  the  friends  who  celebrated  John  Ruskin's 
coming  of  age,  on  February  8,  1840.  He  was 
not  far,  now,  from  his  desired  haven.  A  very 
few  months,  and  he  would  be  passing  his  final 
examinations,  taking  his  degree,  and  preparing 
for  honorable  settlement  in  a  dignified  profession 
in  which  life  would  be  congenial,  advancement 
easy,  and  success  anticipated.  He  had  wealth, 
which  he  owed  to  his  father;  health,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, which  he  owed  to  his  mother's  constant 
care ;  friends  of  the  best,  and  fame  already  much 
wider  and  more  appreciable  than  the  strictly 
academic  reputation  of  the  ordinary  successful 
undergraduate.  For  was  he  not  the  authority  of 
one  magazine,  the  "gifted  contributor"  of  an- 
other, winner  of  the  most  popular  University 
prize,  and,  in  circles  where  such  tastes  are  cur- 
rent, welcomed  as  a  clever  young  artist  and  an 


THE    BROKEN    CHAIN.  IO3 

eager  student  of  science  ?  If,  as  he  was  bidden, 
he  "  counted  up  his  mercies,"  there  was  much  to 
be  thankful  for ;  it  was  indeed  an  auspicious  com- 
ing of  age. 

His  father,  who  had  sympathized  with  his  ad- 
miration for  Turner  enough  to  buy  two  pictures, 
the  Richmond  Bridge  and  the  Gosport,  for  their 
Heme  Hill  drawing-room,  now  gave  him  a  pic- 
ture all  to  himself  for  his  rooms  in  St.  Aldate's, 
—  the  Winchelsea, —  and  settled  on  him  an  allow- 
ance of  pocket-money  of  ^200  a  year.  The  first 
use  he  made  of  his  wealth  was  to  buy  another 
Turner.  In  the  Easter  vacation  he  met  Mr. 
Griffith,  the  dealer,  at  the  private  view  of  the 
Old  Water  Color  Society ;  and  hearing  that  the 
Harlech  Castle  was  for  sale,  he  bought  it  there 
and  then,  with  the  characteristic  disregard  for 
money  which  has  always  made  the  vendors  of 
pictures  and  books  and  minerals  find  him  ex- 
tremely pleasant  to  deal  with.  But  as  his  love- 
affair  had  shown  his  mother  how  little  he  had 
taken  to  heart  her  chiefest  care  for  him,  so  this 
first  business  transaction  was  a  painful  awaken- 
ing to  his  father,  the  canny  Scotch  merchant, 
who  had  heaped  up  riches  hoping  that  his  son 
would  gather  them. 

This  Harlech  Castle  transaction,  however,  was 
not  altogether  unlucky.  It  brought  him  an  in- 
troduction to  the  painter,  whom  he  met  when  he 
was  next  in  town,  at  Mr.  Griffith's  house.  He 
knew  well  enough  the  popular  idea  of  Turner,  as 


104      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

a  morose  and  niggardly,  inexplicable  man.  As 
he  had  seen  faults  in  Turner's  painting,  so  he  was 
ready  to  acknowledge  the  faults  in  his  character. 
But  while  the  rest  of  the  world,  with  a  very  few 
exceptions,  dwelt  upon  the  faults,  Ruskin  had 
penetration  to  discern  the  virtues  which  they  hid. 
Few  passages  in  his  autobiography  are  more  strik- 
ing than  the  transcript  from  his  journal  of  the 
same  evening,  recording  his  first  impression :  — 

" '  I  found  in  him  a  somewhat  eccentric,  keen- 
mannered,  matter-of-fact,  English-minded  —  gen- 
tleman ;  good  -  natured  evidently,  bad  -  tempered 
evidently,  hating  humbug  of  all  sorts,  shrewd,  per- 
haps a  little  selfish,  highly  intellectual,  the  powers 
of  the  mind  not  brought  out  with  any  delight  in 
their  manifestation,  or  intention  of  display,  but 
flashing  out  occasionally  in  a  word  or  a  look.' 
Pretty  close,  that,"  he  adds,  later,  "and  full,  to  be 
set  down  at  the  first  glimpse,  and  set  down  the 
same  evening." 

Turner  was  not  a  man  to  make  an  intimate  of, 
all  at  once ;  the  acquaintanceship  continued,  and 
it  ripened  into  as  close  a  confidence  as  the  eccen- 
tric painter's  habits  of  life  permitted.  He  seems 
to  have  been  more  at  home  with  the  father  than 
with  the  son ;  but  even  when  the  young  man 
took  to  writing  books  about  him,  he  did  not,  as 
Carlyle  is  reported  to  have  done  in  a  parallel 
case,  show  his  exponent  to  the  door. 

The  occasion  of  John  Ruskin's  coming  to  town 
this  time  was  not  a  pleasant  one:  nothing  less 


THE    BROKEN    CHAIN.  1 05 

than  the  complete  break-down  of  his  health,  —  we 
have  heard  the  reasons  why,  in  the  last  chapter 
but  one.  It  is  true  that  he  was  working  very 
hard  during  this  spring;  but  hard  reading  does 
not  of  itself  kill  people,  —  only  when  it  is  com- 
bined with  real  and  prolonged  mental  distress, 
acting  upon  a  sensitive  temperament.  The  case 
was  thought  serious ;  reading  was  stopped,  and 
the  patient  was  ordered  abroad  for  the  winter. 

From  February  to  May,  and  such  a  change! 
Then  he  had  seemed  so  near  the  top  of  the  hill, 
and  the  prospect  was  opening  out  before  him; 
now,  cloud  and  storm  had  come  suddenly  down ; 
the  path  was  lost,  the  future  blotted  out.  Disap- 
pointed in  love  after  four  years  of  hope  and  effort; 
disappointed  in  ambition  after  so  nearly  gathering 
the  fruits  of  his  labor ;  to  be  laid  aside,  to  be  sent 
away  out  of  the  battlefield  as  a  wounded  man,  — 
perhaps  to  die. 

We  have  seen  how  this  young  man  bore  him- 
self when  he  met  Love  face  to  face ;  watch  him 
now,  encountering  Death. 

For  that  summer  there  was  no  hurry  to  be 
gone :  rest  was  more  needful  than  change,  at  first. 
Late  in  September  the  same  family  party  crossed 
the  sea  to  Calais ;  how  different  a  voyage  for 
them  all  from  the  merry  departures  of  bygone 
Mays  !  Which  way  should  they  turn  ?  Not  to 
Paris,  for  there  was  the  cause  of  all  these  ills ;  so 
they  went  straight  southwards  through  Normandy 
to  the  Loire,  and  saw  the  chateaux  and  churches 


106      THE    LIFE   AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

from  Orleans  to  Tours,  famous  for  their  Renais- 
sance architecture,  and  for  the  romance  of  their 
chivalric  history.  Amboise  especially  made  a 
strong  impression  upon  even  the  languid  and 
unwilling  invalid.  It  stirred  him  up  to  write,  in 
easy  verse,  the  tale  of  love  and  death  that  his  own 
situation  too  readily  suggested.  In  "  The  Broken 
Chain,"  he  indulged  his  gloomy  fancy,  turning, 
as  it  was  sure  to  do,  into  a  morbid  nightmare  of 
mysterious  horror,  not  without  reminiscence  of 
Coleridge's  "  Christabel."  But  through  it  all  he 
preserved,  so  to  speak,  his  dramatic  incognito: 
his  own  disappointment  and  his  own  anticipated 
death  were  the  motives  of  the  tale ;  but  treated  in 
such  a  manner  as  not  to  betray  his  secret,  nor 
even  to  wound  the  feelings  of  the  lady  who  now 
was  beyond  appeal  from  an  honorable  lover,  — 
taking  his  punishment  like  a  man. 

This  poem  lasted  him,  for  private  writing,  all 
through  that  journey :  a  fit  emblem  of  the  broken 
life  which  it  records.  A  healthier  source  of  dis- 
traction was  his  drawing,  in  which  he  had  re- 
ceived a  fresh  impetus  from  the  exhibition  of 
David  Roberts's  sketches  in  the  East.  More  deli- 
cate than  Prout's  work,  entering  into  the  detail  of 
architectural  form  more  thoroughly,  and  yet  sug- 
gesting chiaroscuro  with  broad  washes  of  quiet 
tone  and  touches  of  light,  cleverly  introduced, — 
"that  marvelous  pop  of  light  across  the  fore- 
ground," Harding  said  of  the  picture  of  the  Great 
Pyramid,  —  these  drawings  were  a  mean  between 


THE    BROKEN    CHAIN.  107 

the  limited  manner  of  Prout  and  the  inimitable 
fullness  of  Turner.  Ruskin  took  up  the  fine 
pencil  and  the  broad  brush,  and  with  that  blessed 
habit  of  industry  which  has  helped  so  many  a  one 
through  times  of  trial,  made  sketch  after  sketch 
on  the  half-imperial  board,  finished  just  so  far  as 
his  strength  and  time  allowed,  as  they  passed  from 
the  Loire  to  the  mountains  of  Auvergne,  and  to 
the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  and  thence  slowly  round 
the  Riviera  to  Pisa  and  Florence  and  Rome. 

He  was  not  in  a  mood  to  sympathize  readily 
with  the  enthusiasms  of  other  people.  They  ex- 
pected him  to  be  delighted  with  the  scenery,  the 
buildings,  the  picture  galleries  of  Italy,  and  to 
forget  himself  in  admiration.  He  did  admire 
Michelangelo,  and  he  was  interested  in  the  back 
streets  and  slums  of  the  cities.  Something  pi- 
quant was  needed  to  arouse  him ;  the  mild  ecsta- 
sies of  common  connoisseurship  hardly  appeal  to 
a  young  man  between  life  and  death.  He  met 
the  friends  to  whom  he  had  brought  introduc- 
tions :  Mr.  Joseph  Severn,  who  had  been  Keats's 
companion,  and  was  afterwards  to  be  the  genial 
consul  at  Rome ;  and  the  two  Messrs.  Richmond, 
then  studying  art  in  the  regular  professional  way, 
—  one  of  them  to  become  a  celebrated  portrait 
painter,  and  the  other  a  canon  of  Carlisle.  But 
his  views  on  art  were  not  theirs ;  he  was  already 
too  independent  and  outspoken  in  praise  of  his 
own  heroes,  and  too  sick  in  mind  and  body  to  be 
patient  and  to  learn. 


108      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSK1N. 

They  had  not  been  a  month  in  Rome  before 
he  took  the  fever.  As  soon  as  he  was  recovered, 
they  went  still  farther  south,  and  loitered  for  a 
couple  of  months  in  the  neighborhood  of  Naples, 
visiting  the  various  scenes  of  interest,  —  Sorrento, 
Amain,  Salerno.  They  did  not  drag  the  patient 
up  Vesuvius,  of  course ;  and  perhaps  even  if  he 
had  been  strong  he  would  not  have  cared  for  the 
excursion, — for  just  as  he  loved  the  Alps,  and 
found  nothing  but  beauty  and  beneficence  in 
their  crags  and  glaciers,  so  he  saw  in  the  crum- 
bling soil  and  lurid  smoke  of  the  volcanic  region 
—  in  spite  of  its  scientific  interest — "the  image 
of  visible  hell."  It  was  not  only  sentimentalism, 
but  a  sensitiveness  to  form,  especially  to  the 
details  of  curvature,  which  gave  him  this  impres- 
sion ;  a  quality  of  his  taste  which  had  been  early 
shown  in  his  awe  of  the  twining  roots  of  Friar's 
Crag,  and  which  has  determined  most  of  his 
judgments  on  art.  Where  in  nature  the  subject 
admits,  or  in  art  the  painter  perceives,  what  he 
calls  "  infinite  curves,"  springing  lines  of  life,  he 
has  always  recognized  beauty;  but  where  the  nor- 
mal exquisiteness  of  vital  form  is  replaced  by  lines 
suggesting  inertness  or  decay,  he  has  scented  "  a 
form  of  death." 

On  the  way  to  Naples  he  had  noted  the  winter 
scene  at  La  Riccia  which  he  afterwards  used  for 
a  glowing  passage  in  "  Modern  Painters  ;  "  and  he 
had  ventured  into  a  village  of  brigands  to  draw 
such  a  castle  as  he  had  once  imagined  in   his 


THE    BROKEN    CHAIN.  IO9 

"  Leoni."  From  Naples  he  wrote  an  account  of  a 
landslip  near  Giagnano,  which  was  sent  home  to 
the  Ashmolean  Society.  He  seemed  better;  they 
turned  homewards,  when  suddenly  he  was  seized 
with  all  the  old  symptoms,  worse  than  ever.  After 
another  month  at  Rome,  they  traveled  slowly 
northwards  from  town  to  town ;  spent  ten  days 
of  May  at  Venice,  and  passed  through  Milan  and 
Turin,  and  over  the  Mont  Cenis  to  Geneva. 

At  last  he  was  among  the  mountains  again,  — 
the  Alps  that  he  loved.  It  was  not  only  that  the 
air  of  the  Alps  braced  him,  but  the  spirit  of 
mountain -worship  stirred  him  as  nothing  else 
could.  At  last  he  seemed  himself,  after  more 
than  a  year  of  intense  depression  ;  and  he  records 
that  one  day,  in  church  at  Geneva,  he  resolved  to 
do  something,  to  be  something  useful.  That  he 
could  make  such  a  resolve  was  a  sign  of  return- 
ing health  ;  but  if,  as  I  have  heard,  he  had  just 
been  reading  Carlyle's  lately  published  lectures  on 
Heroes,  though  he  did  not  accept  Carlyle's  con- 
clusions nor  admire  his  style,  might  he  not,  in 
spite  of  his  judgment,  have  been  spurred  the 
more  into  energy  by  that  enthusiastic  gospel  of 
action  ? 

They  traveled  home  by  Basle  and  Laon ;  but 
London  in  August,  and  the  premature  attempt  to 
be  energetic,  brought  on  a  recurrence  of  the 
symptoms  of  consumption.  He  wished  to  try  the 
mountain  cure  again,  and  set  out  with  his  friend 
Richard  Fall  for  a  tour  in  Wales.     But  his  father 


IIO      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

recalled  him  to  Leamington,  to  try  iron  and  diet- 
ing under  Dr.  Jephson,  who,  if  he  was  called  a 
quack,  was  a  sensible  one,  and  successful  in  sub- 
duing, for  several  years  to  come,  the  more  serious 
phases  of  the  disease.  The  patient  was  not  cured : 
he  suffered  from  time  to  time  from  his  chest,  and 
still  more  from  a  weakness  of  the  spine,  which 
during  all  the  period  of  his  early  manhood  gave 
him  trouble,  and  finished  by  bending  his  tall  and 
lithe  figure  into  something  that,  were  it  not  for 
his  face,  would  be  deformity.  In  1847  ne  was 
again  at  Leamington,  under  Jephson,  in  conse- 
quence of  a  relapse  into  the  consumptive  symp- 
toms ;  after  which  we  hear  no  more  of  it.  He 
outgrew  the  tendency,  as  so  many  do.  But 
nevertheless  the  alarm  had  been  justifiable,  and 
the  malady  had  left  traces  which,  in  one  way  and 
another,  haunted  him  ever  after.  For  one  of  the 
worst  effects  of  consumption  is  to  be  thought 
consumptive,  and  marked  down  as  an  invalid. 

At  Leamington,  then,  in  September,  1841,  he 
was  finding  a  new  life  under  the  doctor's  dieting, 
and  new  aims  in  life,  which  were  eventually  to  re- 
solder,  for  a  while,  the  broken  chain.  Among  the 
Scotch  friends  of  the  Ruskins  there  wTas  a  family 
at  Perth  whose  daughter  came  to  visit  at  Heme 
Hill,  —  more  lovely,  and  more  lively,  than  his 
Spanish  princess  had  been.  The  story  goes  that 
she  challenged  the  melancholy  John,  engrossed  in 
his  drawing  and  geology,  to  write  a  fairy-tale 
as  the  least  likely  task  for  him  to  fulfill.     Upon 


THE    BROKEN    CHAIN.  I  I  I 

which  he  produced  at  a  couple  of  sittings  "  The 
King  of  the  Golden  River,"  —  a  pretty  medley  of 
Grimm's  grotesque  and  Dickens's  kindliness  and 
the  true  Ruskinian  ecstasy  of  the  Alps. 

He  had  come  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow, 
that  terrible  experience  which  so  few  survive ; 
fewer  still  emerge  from  it  without  loss  of  all  that 
makes  their  life  worth  the  living.  But  though 
for  a  while  he  was  "  hard  bestead,"  he  fought  a 
good  fight,  and  kept  his  faith  in  God  and  in  Na- 
ture, and  —  but  too  fond  a  faith  —  in  the  human 
heart. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE     GRADUATE    OF    OXFORD. 

(1841-1842.) 

"Enough  of  Science  and  of  Art; 
Close  up  those  barren  leaves ; 
Come  forth,  and  bring  with  you  a  heart 
That  watches  and  receives." 

Wordsworth. 

Ready  for  work  again,  and  in  reasonable  health 
of  mind  and  body,  John  Ruskin  sat  down  in  his 
little  study  at  Heme  Hill  in  November,  1 841,  with 
his  wise  tutor,  Osborne  Gordon.  There  was 
eighteen  months'  leeway  to  make  up;  and  the 
dates  of  ancient  history,  the  details  of  schematized 
Aristoteleanism,  soon  slip  out  of  mind  when  one 
is  sketching  in  Italy.  But  he  was  more  serious 
now  about  his  work,  and  aware  of  his  deficiencies. 
To  be  useful  in  the  world,  is  it  not  necessary,  first, 
to  understand  all  possible  Greek  constructions? 
So  said  the  voice  of  Oxford ;  but  our  under- 
graduate was  saved,  both  now  and  afterwards, 
from  this  vain  ambition.  "  I  think  it  would  hardly 
be  worth  your  while,"  said  Gordon,  with  Delphic 
double  entendre. 

Ruskin  could  not  now  go  in  for  honors,  for  his 
lost  year  had  superannuated  him.     So  in  May  he 


THE   GRADUATE    OF    OXFORD.  I  I  3 

went  up  for  a  pass.  In  those  times,  when  a  pass- 
man showed  unusual  powers,  they  could  give  him 
an  honorary  class,  not  a  high  class,  because  the 
ranee  of  the  examination  was  less  than  in  the 
honor-school.  This  candidate  wrote  a  poor  Latin 
prose,  it  seems ;  but  his  divinity,  philosophy,  and 
mathematics  were  so  good  that  they  gave  him  the 
best  they  could,  an  honorary  double  fourth.  Upon 
which  he  took  his  B.  A.  degree,  and  could  describe 
himself  as  "  A  Graduate  of  Oxford." 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Ruskin  wrote  a  bad  Latin 
prose.  He  knew  Latin  well ;  it  was  Greek  that 
he  was  deficient  in.  He  knew  French,  and  read 
it  constantly,  which  is  a  help  to  Latin  writing. 
He  was  a  clever  imitator  of  style,  and  surely  never 
workman  handled  his  tools  with  readier  skill.  But 
he  was  inaccurate.  His  early  writing  was  full  of 
thought,  of  sonority,  of  effect ;  but  risking  strange 
irregularities  of  grammar,  not  to  say  blunders, 
from  which  he  has  never  quite  cleared  his  para- 
graphs. That  freedom  of  touch  is  a  trick  of  his 
literary  art. 

The  divinity,  by  which  is  meant  Bible-know- 
ledge, was  thoroughly  learned  from  his  mother's 
early,  lessons.  Not  long  after,  he  was  contemptu- 
ously amused  at  a  Scotch  reviewer  who  did  not 
know  what  a  "  chrysoprase  "  was ;  as  the  word 
occurs  in  the  Revelation,  he  assumed  that  every 
one  ought  to  know  it,  whether  mineralogist  or  not. 
And  his  works  teem  with  Biblical  quotations,  — 
see  their  indexes  for  the  catalogue.     The  mathe- 


114      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

matics  were  not  elaborate  in  the  old  Oxford  pass- 
school  ;  geometry  and  the  elements  of  trigonom- 
etry and  conies,  thoroughly  got  by  heart  and  fre- 
quently alluded  to  in  early  works,  sum  up  his 
studies.  The  philosophy  meant  the  usual  Logic 
from  Aldrich,  with  Bacon  and  Locke,  Aristotle 
and  Plato,  analyzed  into  rather  thin  abstract.  But 
Ruskin,  with  his  thoroughness  in  all  matters  of 
general  interest,  took  in  the  teaching  of  his  books 
and  inwardly  digested  it.  "  Modern  Painters," 
even  in  its  literary  style,  is  imbued  with  Locke ; 
Aristotle  is  his  leader  and  antagonist,  alternately, 
throughout  the  earlier  period  of  art  criticism,  and 
Plato  his  guide  and  philosopher  ever  after.  Some 
Scotch  philosophy  he  had  read  :  Thomas  Brown, 
his  parents'  old  friend  ;  Dugald  Stewart,  and  the 
rest  of  the  school ;  and  their  teaching  comes  out 
in  the  scheme  of  thought  that  underlies  his  artistic 
theories. 

•  It  is  worth  while  dwelling  upon  his  acquire- 
ments at  this  moment,  taking  stock,  as  it  were, 
because  he  was  on  the  brink  of  his  first  great 
work.  "  Modern  Painters "  has  been  usually 
looked  upon  as  the  sudden  outburst  of  a  genius, 
young  but  mature,  complex  but  inexplicable ;  to 
be  accepted  as  a  gospel,  or  to  be  decried  as  the 
raving  of  a  heretic.  But  we  cannot  trace  the 
author's  life  without  seeing  that  the  book  is  only 
one  episode  in  an  interesting  development.  We 
have  been  gradually  led  up  to  it,  and  as  gradu- 
ally we  shall  be  led  away  from  it.    And  the  better 


THE    GRADUATE    OF    OXFORD.  I  1 5 

we  understand  the  circumstances  of  its  production, 
the  better  we  shall  be  able  to  appreciate  it,  to 
weigh  it,  and  to  keep  what  is  permanent  in  it. 
That  will  be  true  criticism,  the  only  possible 
criticism  for  an  intelligent  reader,  who  sees 
no  authority  in  the  impudent  assumption  of  an 
extemporized  black  cap. 

All  this  religious  and  useful  learning  was  very 
lightly  carried  by  our  Oxford  graduate.  He  could 
now  take  no  high  academic  position,  and  the  con- 
tinued weakness  of  his  health  kept  him  from  en- 
tering either  commerce  or  the  church.  And  his 
real  interest  in  art  was  not  crowded  out  even  by 
the  last  studies  for  his  examination.  While  he 
was  working  with  Gordon,  in  the  autumn  of  1841, 
he  was  also  taking  lessons  from  J.  D.  Harding ; 
and  the  famous  study  of  ivy,  his  first  naturalistic 
sketching,  to  which  we  must  revert,  —  this  must 
have  been  done  a  week  or  two  before  going  up 
for  his  "  finals." 

The  lessons  from  Harding  were  a  useful 
counter-stroke  to  the  excessive  and  exaggerated 
Turnerism  in  which  he  had  been  indulging  dur- 
ing his  illness.  The  drawings  of  Amboise,  the 
coast  of  Genoa,  and  the  Glacier  des  Bois,  though 
published  later,  were  made  before  he  had  ex- 
changed fancy  for  fact ;  and  they  bear,  on  the 
face  of  them,  the  obvious  marks  of  an  unhealthy 
state  of  mind.  Harding,  whose  robust  common 
sense  and  breezy  mannerism  endeared  him  to  the 
British  amateur  of  his  generation,  was  just  the 


Il6      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

man  to  correct  any  morbid  tendency.  He  had 
religious  views  in  sympathy  with  his  pupil ;  and 
he  soon  inoculated  Ruskin  with  his  contempt  for 
the  minor  Dutch  school ;  those  bituminous  land- 
scapes, so  unlike  the  sparkling  freshness  that 
Harding's  own  water  color  illustrated  ;  and  those 
vulgar  tavern  scenes,  painted,  he  declared,  by  sots, 
who  disgraced  art  alike  in  their  works  and  in  their 
lives. 

Until  this  epoch,  John  Ruskin  had  found 
much  that  interested  him  in  the  Dutch  and  Flem- 
ish painters  of  the  seventeenth  century.  He  had 
classed  them  all  together  as  the  school  of  which 
Rubens,  Vandyck,  and  Rembrandt  were  the  chief 
masters,  and  those  as  names  to  rank  with  Ra- 
phael and  Michelangelo  and  Velasquez.  He  was 
a  humorist,  not  without  boyish  delight  in  a 
good  Sam-Wellerism ;  and  so  could  be  amused 
with  the  "drolls,"  until  Harding  appealed  to  his 
religion  and  morality  against  them.  He  was  a 
chiaroscurist,  and  not  naturally  offended  by  their 
violent  light  and  shade,  until  George  Richmond 
showed  him  the  more  excellent  way  in  color,  the 
glow  of  Venice  ;  first  hinting  it  at  Rome  in  1840, 
and  then  proving  it  in  London  in  the  spring  of 
1842,  from  Samuel  Rogers's  treasures,  of  which 
the  chief  (now  in  the  National  Gallery)  was  the 
Christ  appearing  to  the  Magdalen. 

Much  as  the  author  of  "  Modern  Painters " 
owed  to  these  friends  and  teachers,  and  to  the  ad- 
vantages of  his  varied  training,  he  would  never 


THE   GRADUATE    OF    OXFORD.  117 

have  written  his  great  work  without  a  farther 
inspiration.  Harding's  especial  forte  was  his 
method  of  drawing  trees.  He  looked  at  nature 
with  an  eye  which,  for  his  period,  was  singularly 
fresh  and  unprejudiced;  he  had  a  strong  feeling 
for  truth  of  structure  as  well  as  for  picturesque 
effect ;  and  he  taught  his  pupils  to  observe  as  well 
as  to  draw.  But  in  his  own  practice  he  rested 
too  much  on  having  observed,  formed  a  style,  and 
copied  himself,  if  he  did  not  copy  the  old  masters. 
Hence  he  held  to  rules  of  composition,  and  con- 
scious graces  of  arrangement,  and  while  he  taught 
naturalism  in  study,  he  followed  it  up  with  teach- 
ing artifice  in  practice. 

Turner,  who  was  not  a  drawing-master,  lay 
under  no  necessity  to  formulate  his  principles 
and  stick  to  them.  On  the  contrary,  his  style 
developed  like  a  kaleidoscope,  ever  changing  into 
something  more  rich  and  strange.  He  had  been 
in  Switzerland  and  on  the  Rhine  in  1841,  "  paint- 
ing his  impressions,"  making  water-color  notes 
from  memory  of  effects  that  had  struck  him. 
From  one  of  these,  Spliigen,  he  had  made  a 
finished  picture,  and  now  wished  to  get  commis- 
sions for  more  of  the  same  class.  Ruskin  was 
greatly  interested  in  this  series,  because  they  were 
not  landscapes  of  the  ordinary  type,  scenes  from 
nature  squeezed  into  the  mould  of  recognized 
artistic  composition  ;  nor  on  the  other  hand  mere 
photographic  transcripts  ;  but  dreams,  as  it  were, 
of  the  mountains  and  sunsets,  in  which  Turner's 


Il8       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

wealth  of  detail  was  suggested,  and  his  intuitive 
knowledge  of  form  expressed,  together  with  the 
unity  which  comes  of  the  faithful  record  of  a 
single  impression.  Nothing  had  been  done  like 
them  before,  in  landscape.  They  showed  that  an 
artistic  result  might  be  obtained  without  the  use 
of  the  ordinary  tricks  and  professional  rules ;  that 
there  was  a  sort  of  composition  possible,  of  which 
the  usual  hackneyed  arrangements  were  merely 
frigid  and  vapid  imitations ;  and  that  this  higher 
kind  of  art  was  only  to  be  learned  by  long  watch- 
ing of  Nature,  and  sincere  rendering  of  her  mo- 
tives, of  her  supreme  moments,  of  the  spirit  of 
her  scenes. 

The  lesson  was  soon  enforced  upon  his  mind 
by  example.  One  day,  while  taking  his  student's 
constitutional,  he  noticed  a  tree  stem  with  ivy 
upon  it,  which  seemed  not  ungraceful,  and  invited 
a  sketch.  As  he  drew,  he  fell  into  the  spirit  of 
its  natural  arrangement,  and  soon  perceived  how 
much  finer  it  was  as  a  piece  of  design  than  any 
conventional  rearrangement  would  be.  Harding 
had  tried  to  show  him  how  to  generalize  foliage ; 
but  in  this  example  he  saw  that  not  generalization 
was  needed  to  get  at  its  beauty,  but  truth.  If  he 
could  express  his  sense  of  the  charm  of  the  nat- 
ural arrangement,  what  use  in  substituting  an 
artificial  composition? 

In  that  discovery  lay  the  germ  of  his  whole 
theory  of  art,  the  gist  of  his  mission.  Under- 
standing the  importance  of  it,  we  shall  understand 


THE  GRADUATE  OF  OXFORD.        II9 

his  subsequent  writing,  the  grounds  of  his  criti- 
cism and  the  text  of  his  art-teaching.  If  it  can  be 
summed  in  a  word,  the  word  is  "  Sincerity."  Be 
sincere  with  Nature,  and  take  her  as  she  is; 
neither  casually  glancing  at  her  "effects,"  nor 
dully  laboring  at  her  parts,  with  the  intention  of 
improving  and  blending  them  into  something 
better,  but  taking  her  all  in  all.  On  the  other 
hand,  be  sincere"  with  yourself;  knowing  what 
you  truly  admire,  and  painting  that,  refusing  the 
hypocrisy  of  any  "  grand  style  "  or  "  high  art " 
just  as  much  as  you  refuse  to  pander  to  vulgar 
tastes.  And  then  vital  art  is  produced  ;  and,  if 
the  workman  be  a  man  of  great  powers,  great 
art. 

All  this  follows  from  the  ivy  sketch  on  Tulse 
Hill  in  May,  1842.  It  did  not  follow  all  at  once: 
repeated  experiment  was  needed  to  give  the 
grounds  from  which  the  induction  was  drawn. 
At  Fontainebleau  soon  after,  under  much  the 
same  circumstances,  a  study  of  an  aspen-tree,  idly 
begun,  but  carried  out  with  interest  and  patience, 
confirmed  the  principle.  At  Geneva,  once  more 
in  the  church  where  he  had  formed  such  resolu- 
tions the  year  before,  the  desire  came  over  him 
with  renewed  force :  now  not  only  to  be  usefully 
employed,  but  to  be  employed  in  the  service  of  a 
definite  mission ;  which,  be  it  observed,  was  in 
art  exactly  what  Carlyle  had  preached  in  every 
other  sphere  of  life  in  that  book  of  "  Heroes,"  — 
the  gospel  of  sincerity ;  the  reference  of  greatness 


120      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

in  any  form  to  honesty  of  purpose  as  the  underly- 
ing motive  of  a  perspicuous  intellect  and  a  reso- 
lute will,  these  last  being  necessary  conditions 
of  success,  but  the  sincerity  being  the  chief  thing 
needful. 

The  design  took  shape.  At  Chamouni  he 
studied  plants  and  rocks  and  clouds,  not  as  an 
artist,  to  make  pictures  out  of  them,  nor  as  a 
scientist,  to  class  them  and  analyze  them ;  but  to 
learn  their  aspects  and  enter  into  the  spirit  of 
their  growth  and  structure.  And  though  on  his 
way  home  through  Switzerland  and  down  the 
Rhine  he  made  a  few  drawings  in  his  old  style, 
for  admiring  friends,  they  were  the  last  of  the 
kind  that  he  attempted.  Thenceforward  his  path 
was  marked  out ;  he  had  found  his  vocation.  He 
was  not  to  be  a  poet,  —  that  was  too  definitely 
bound  up  with  the  past  which  he  wanted  to  for- 
get, and  with  conventionalities  of  art  which  he 
wished  to  shake  off;  not  to  be  an  artist,  strug- 
gling with  the  rest  to  please  a  public  which  he 
felt  himself  called  upon  to  teach ;  not  a  man  of 
science,  for  his  botany  and  geology  were  to  be 
the  means  and  not  the  ends  of  his  teaching; 
but  the  mission  was  laid  upon  him  to  tell  the 
world  that  art,  no  less  than  the  other  spheres  of 
life,  had  its  heroes ;  that  the  mainspring  of  their 
energy  was  sincerity,  and  the  burden  of  their 
utterance,  truth. 


BOOK   II. 

.THE  ART  CRITIC. 

(1842-1860.) 

"  The  almost  unparalleled  example  of  a  man  winning  for  himself  the 
unanimous  plaudits  of  his  generation  and  time,  and  then  casting  them 
away  like  dust,  that  he  may  build  his  monument  —  are perennius." 

Ruskin  on  Ttirner,  1844. 


CHAPTER  I. 

TURNER   AND   THE   ANCIENTS. 

(1842-1844.) 

'Apxh  yty  rb  #T(. 

Aristotle,  Ethics,  i.  4. 

The  neighbor,  or  the  Oxonian  friend,  who 
climbed  the  steps  of  the  Heme  Hill  house  and 
called  upon  Mrs.  Ruskin,  in  the  autumn  and  win- 
ter of  1842,  would  learn  that  Mr.  John  was  hard 
at  work  in  his  own  study  overhead.  Those  were 
its  windows,  on  the  second  floor,  looking  out 
upon  the  front  garden ;  the  big  dormer  window 
above  was  his  bedroom,  from  which  he  had  his 
grand  view  of  lowland,  and  far  horizon,  and  uncon- 
fined  sky,  comparatively  clear  of  London  smoke. 
In  the  study  itself,  screened  from  the  road  by 
russet  foliage  and  thick  evergreens,  great  things 
were  going  on.  But  Mr.  John  could  be  inter- 
rupted ;  would  come  running  lightly  downstairs, 
with  both  hands  out  to  greet  the  visitor ;  would 
show  the  pictures,  eagerly  demonstrating  the 
beauties  of  the  last  new  Turners,  Ehrenbreit- 
stein  and  Lucerne,  just  acquired ;  and  anticipating 
the  sunset  glories  and  mountain  gloom  of  the 
Goldau  and  Dazio  Grande,  which  the  great  artist 


124      THE    LIFE   AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

was  "realizing"  for  him  from  sketches  he  had 
chosen  at  Queen  Anne  Street.  He  was  very 
busy,  but  never  too  busy  to  see  his  friends ;  writ- 
ing a  book,  and  yet  not  to  be  "  pumped  "  about 
it,  for  he  had  already  adopted  a  motto  which  he 
has  often  repeated,  "  Don't  talk  about  your  work, 
but  do  it." 

And,  the  visitor  gone,  he  would  run  up  to  his 
room  and  his  writing,  sure  of  the  thread  of  his 
ideas  and  the  flow  of  his  language,  with  none  of 
that  misery  and  despair  of  soul  which  an  inter- 
ruption brings  to  many  another  author.  In  the 
afternoon  his  careful  mother  would  turn  him  out 
for  a  tramp  round  the  Norwood  lanes ;  he  might 
look  in  at  the  Poussins  and  Claudes  of  the  Dul- 
wich  Gallery ;  or,  for  a  longer  excursion,  go  over 
to  Mr.  Thomas  Windus,  F.  S.  A.,  and  his  room- 
ful of  Turner  drawings;  or  sit  to  Mr.  George 
Richmond  for  the  second  of  the  two  portraits, 
the  full  length  with  desk  and  portfolio,  and  Mont 
Blanc  in  the  background.  After  dinner,  another 
hour  or  two's  writing;  and  early  to  bed  after 
finishing  his  chapter  with  a  flourish  of  eloquence, 
to  be  read  next  morning  at  breakfast  to  father 
and  mother  and  Mary  —  for  from  them  it  was  no 
secret.  The  vivid  descriptions  of  scenes  yet  fresh 
in  their  memory,  or  of  pictures  they  treasured, 
the  "  thoughts,"  as  they  used  to  be  called,  allu- 
sions to  sincere  beliefs  and  cherished  hopes,  never 
failed  to  win  the  praise  that  pleased  the  young 
writer  most,  in  happy  tears  of  unrestrained  emo- 


HERNE    HILL 
Mr.  Ruskiti's  Home,  1823-43 


TURNER  AND  THE  ANCIENTS.       1 25 

tion.  These  old-fashioned  folk  had  not  learned 
the  trick  of  nil  admirari.  Quite  honestly  they 
would  say,  with  the  German  musician,  "  When  I 
hear  good  music,  then  must  I  always  weep." 

We  can  look  into  the  little  study,  and  see  what 
this  writing  was  that  went  on  so  busily  and 
steadily.  It  was  the  long-meditated  defense  of 
Turner,  provoked  by  "  Blackwood's  Magazine " 
six  years  before,  encouraged  by  Carlyle's  "  Heroes," 
and  necessitated  by  the  silence,  on  this  topic,  of 
the  more  enlightened  leaders  of  thought  in  an 
age  of  cut  and  dry  connoisseurship  and  critical 
cant.  There  were  teachers  like  Prout  and  Hard- 
ing, right,  but  narrow  in  range ;  and  the  moment 
any  author  ventured  upon  the  subject  of  "  high 
art,"  his  principles  of  beauty  and  theories  of  sub- 
limity stood  in  the  way  of  candor  and  common 
sense. 

But  Kata  Phusin  had  been  to  college,  and  read 
his  "  Ethics ; "  and  he  had  marked  such  a  passage 
as  this :  "  We  must  not  forget  the  difference 
between  reason  mg  from  principles  and  reasoning 
to  principles.  Plato  was  quite  right  in  pointing 
this  out,  and  in  saying  that  it  is  as  important  in 
philosophy  as  in  running  races,  to  know  where 
your  starting-point  is  to  be.  Now  you  and  I," 
quoth  Aristotle,  "  can  reason  only  upon  what  we 
know, —  not  on  what  we  ought  to  know,  or  might 
be  supposed  to  know ;  but  upon  what  each  of  us 
has  ascertained  to  be  matter  of  fact.  Fact,  then, — 
the  particular  fact,  —  is  our  starting-point.     Take 


126      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

care  of  the  facts,"  he  says,  to  put  him  into  plain 
English,  "  and  the  principles  will  take  care  of 
themselves." 

This  Aristotle  did,  and  in  the  sphere  of  ethics 
found  that  the  observed  facts  of  conscience  and 
conduct  were  not  truly  explained  by  the  old  moral 
philosophy  of  the  Sophists  and  the  Academy. 
Just  in  the  same  way,  our  young  Aristotelean,  by 
beginning  with  the  observed  facts  of  nature, — 
truths,  he  called  them,  —  and  the  practice,  not  the 
precept,  of  great  artists,  superseded  the  eighteenth 
century  academic  art  theories,  and  created  a  per- 
fectly new  school  of  criticism ;  which,  however 
erring  or  incomplete  in  details,  or  misapplied  in 
corollaries,  did  for  English  art  what  Aristotle  did 
for  Greek  ethics.  He  brought  the  whole  subject 
to  the  bar  of  common  sense  and  common  under- 
standing. He  took  it  out  of  the  hands  of  adepts 
and  initiated  jargoners,  and  made  it  public  prop- 
erty, the  right  and  the  responsibility  of  all. 

Though  Ruskin  had  the  honor  of  doing  this 
work  in  the  world  of  art,  others  were  doing  simi- 
lar work  in  other  spheres.  Most  of  our  soundest 
thinkers  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
were  brought  up  on  the  "  Ethics,"  and  learned  to 
take  fact  for  their  starting-point.  The  physical 
science  school,  whether  classically  trained  or  not, 
was  working  in  the  same  cause,  —  the  substitution 
of  observation  and  experiment  for  generalization 
and  a  priori  theories.  And  it  is  curious,  as  show- 
ing how  accurately  the  young  John  Ruskin  was 


TURNER  AND  THE  ANCIENTS.        1 27 

representative  of  the  spirit  of  his  age,  that  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  was  propounding  his  revo- 
lutionary art  philosophy,  John  Stuart  Mill  was 
writing  that  "  Logic  "  which  was  to  convert  the 
old  hocus-pocus  of  scholasticism  into  the  method 
of  modern  scientific  inquiry. 

Nowadays  we  think  of  Mr.  Ruskin  as  somewhat 
of  a  reactionary,  laudator  temporis  acti,  opponent 
of  modernism.  But,  like  many  men  of  note,  he 
began  as  a  progressist,  the  preacher  of  hope,  the 
darter  of  new  lights,  the  destroyer  of  pythons  — 
chaos-bred  tyrannic  superstitions  quibus  lumen 
ademptum.  His  youth  was  an  epoch  of  intellec- 
tual reform  ;  one  of  many  such  epochs,  when  the 
house  of  life  was  being  set  in  order  for  another 
cycle's  work  and  wage-earning;  no  new  thing,  but 
necessary. 

There  had  been  such  a  clearance  begun  a  hun- 
dred and  seventy  years  before  by  John  Locke, 
when  he  took  fact  for  his  starting-point  in  a  revolt 
from  the  tyranny  of  philosophical  dogma.  And 
it  was  not  at  all  strange  that  our  young  author 
should  model  his  manifesto  upon  so  renowned  a 
precedent ;  that  his  style,  in  the  opening  chapters 
of  his  work,  his  arrangement  in  divisions  and  sub- 
divisions, even  his  marginal  summaries,  should  re- 
call the  "  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding," 
from  which  the  scheme  and  system  of  his  thought 
were  derived. 

He  began,  like  Locke,  by  showing  that  public 
opinion  and  the  dicta  of  tradition  were  no  valid 


128      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

authorities.  If  painting  be  an  expression  of  the 
human  mind,  —  as,  in  another  way,  language  is, 
—  and  if  the  contents  of  the  mind  are  Ideas, 
then,  he  said,  the  best  painting  is  that  which  con- 
tains the  greatest  number  of  the  greatest  Ideas. 
Locke  had  shown  that  all  ideas  are  derived  from 
Sensation,  from  Reflection,  and  from  the  combi- 
nation of  both  :  the  Ideas  which  painting  can  ex- 
press must  be  similarly  derived.  And  since  the 
mind  which  we  share  with  the  Deity  is  nobler 
than  the  senses  which  we  share  with  beasts,  it  was 
logical  to  conclude  that,  in  proportion  as  the  Ideas 
expressed  in  painting  are  intellectual  and  moral, 
the  art  that  expresses  them  is  fuller  and  higher. 
Ideas  of  Imitation,  involving  only  the  illusion  of 
the  senses,  are  the  lowest  of  all ;  those  of  Power, 
artistic  execution,  are  a  step  higher,  but  still  so 
much  in  the  realm  of  sensation  as  to  be  hardly 
matter  of  argument;  and  therefore  the  Ideas  of 
Truth,  of  Beauty,  and  of  Relation  (or  the  imagina- 
tive presentment  of  poetical  thought  in  the  lan- 
guage of  painting)  are  the  three  chief  topics  of 
his  inquiry. 

For  the  present  he  will  discuss  Truth ;  the 
more  readily  as  it  was  the  general  complaint  that 
Turner  was  untrue  to  Nature.     What  is  Truth  ? 

Aristotle  had  stated  plainly  enough,  "  Partic- 
ular fact  is  our  starting-point."  But  unfortu- 
nately Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  our  old  friend  North- 
cote's  master,  the  greatest  English  artist  and  art 
theorist,  had  taught  a  modified  academic  doctrine 


yohn  Rusk i? i  in  1842 


TURNER  AND  THE  ANCIENTS.       1 29 

of  Ideas,  not  Lockean,  but  Platonic;  and  our 
young  philosopher  lost  his  way,  for  the  time,  in 
trying  to  reconcile  one  favorite  authority  with 
another.  But  he  was  able  to  show  that  old-fash- 
ioned generalization  was  not  truth ;  and  quitting 
the  formal  doctrinaire  tone  of  his  opening  chap- 
ters, he  plunged  eagerly  into  the  illustration  of  his 
theme,  namely,  that  Truth  in  landscape  art  was 
the  expression  of  natural  law,  by  exhibiting  such 
facts  as  tell  the  story  of  the  scene.  For  example : 
Canaletto,  with  all  his  wonderful  mechanism,  when 
he  painted  Venice  lost  the  fullness  of  detail  and 
glory  of  light  and  color ;  Prout  secured  only  the 
picturesqueness  with  his  five  strokes  of  a  reed 
pen;  Stanfield  only  the  detail;  while  Turner  gave 
the  full  character  of  the  place  in  its  detail,  color, 
light,  mystery,  and  poetical  effect. 

In  the  analysis  of  natural  fact  as  shown  in 
painting,  there  was  full  scope  for  the  power  of 
descriptive  writing  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
Ruskin's  peculiar  gift  and  study.  When  he  came 
to  compare  Gaspar  Poussin's  picture  of  La  Riccia 
with  the  real  scene  as  he  had  witnessed  it,  he 
had  the  description  ready  to  hand  in  his  journal 
of  two  years  before ;  and  a  careful  drawing  on 
the  spot,  not,  indeed,  realizing  the  color,  which 
he  could  not  then  attempt,  but  recording  "the 
noonday  sun  slanting  down  the  rocky  slopes  of 
La  Riccia,  and  its  masses  of  ^entangled  and  tall 
foliage,"  with  their  autumnal  tints  suggested  so 
far  as  his  water-color  wash  on  gray  paper  allowed. 


I3O      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF    JOHN    RUSKIN. 

A  still  happier  adaptation  of  accumulated  mate- 
rial was  his  word-picture  of  a  night  on  the  Rigi, 
with  all  its  wonderful  successive  effects  of  gather- 
ing thunder,  sunset  in  tempest,  serene  starlight, 
and  the  magic  glories  of  Alpine  sunrise;  taken 
from  the  true  story  of  his  visit  there,  eight  years 
before,  as  described  in  a  rhyming  letter  to  Richard 
Fall,  and  ingeniously  embroidered  with  a  running 
commentary  on  a  series  of  drawings  by  Turner. 

Then  passing  to  the  forms  of  mountains,  he 
warmed  with  his  old  enthusiasm.  Years  of  study 
and  travel  had  taught  him  to  combine  scientific 
geology  with  the  mystery  and  poetry  of  the  Alps. 
Byron  and  Shelley  had  touched  the  poetry  of 
them  ;  a  crowd  of  earnest  investigators  were  work- 
ing at  geology.  But  none  beside  this  youth  of 
twenty-three  had  made  them  the  topic  of  literature 
so  lofty  in  aim  and  so  masterly  in  execution. 

And  as  the  year  ran  out,  he  was  ending  his 
work,  happy  in  the  applause  of  his  little  domestic 
circle,  and  conscious  that  he  was  preaching  the 
crusade  of  sincerity,  the  cause  of  justice  for  the 
greatest  landscape  artist  of  any  age,  and  justice,  at 
the  hands  of  a  heedless  public,  for  the  glorious 
works  of  the  supreme  Artist  of  the  universe.  Let 
our  young  painters,  he  concluded,  go  humbly  to 
Nature,  "  rejecting  nothing,  selecting  nothing,  and 
scorning  nothing,"  in  spite  of  academic  theorists ; 
and  in  time  we  should  have  a  school  of  landscape 
worthy  of  the  inspiration  they  would  find. 

There  was  his  book,  the  title  of  it,   "Turner 


TURNER  AND  THE  ANCIENTS.       131 

and  the  Ancients."  Before  publishing,  to  get 
more  experienced  criticism  than  that  of  the  break- 
fast-table, he  submitted  it  to  his  friend,  Mr.  W.  H. 
Harrison.  The  title,  it  seemed,  was  not  explicit 
enough ;  and  after  debate  they  substituted  one 
which  was  too  explicit  to  be  neat :  "  Modern 
Painters,  their  superiority  in  the  Art  of  Landscape 
Painting  to  all  the  Ancient  Masters  proved  by 
Examples  of  the  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  In- 
tellectual, from  the  works  of  Modern  Artists, 
especially  from  those  of  J.  M.  W.  Turner,  Esq., 
R.  A."  And  as  the  severe  tone  of  many  remarks 
was  felt  to  be  hardly  supported  by  the  age  and 
standing  of  so  young  an  author,  he  was  content  to 
sign  himself  "  A  Graduate  of  Oxford." 

Mr.  Harrison  did  much  for  Mr.  Ruskin's  early 
work.  For  thirty  years  he  revised  proofs,  and 
acted  as  censor  in  all  matters  of  grammar  and 
punctuation.  There  are  few  authors  who  can  say 
of  any  good  piece  of  work,  "  Alone  I  did  it ; "  but 
whatever  young  Ruskin  owed  to  Locke  and  to 
Coleridge,  to  Reynolds  and  Johnson,  to  Harding 
and  Harrison,  the  work  was  such  as  none  but  he 
could  have  planned  and  carried  through.  And 
for  the  egoist  they  call  him,  is  it  not  surprising 
that  he  should  have  submitted  to  the  pruning  of 
his  pet  periods  by  the  editor  of  "  Friendship's 
Offering  "  ? 

It  is  odd  how  easily  men  of  note  become  the 
heroes  of  myths.  The  too  common  discourage- 
ment of  young  geniuses,  the  old  story  of  the  re- 


132       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

jected  manuscript,  disdainful  publishers,  and  hope 
deferred,  experienced  by  so  many  as  to  be  typical 
of  the  tadpole  stage  of  a  literary  reputation,  all 
this  has  been  tacked  on  to  Mr.  Ruskin's  supposed 
first  start.  Anecdotes  are  told  of  his  father  hawk- 
ing the  MS.  from  office  to  office  until  it  found  ac- 
ceptance with  Messrs.  Smith  &  Elder,  —  absurd, 
since  young  Ruskin  had  been  doing  business  for 
seven  years  past  with  that  firm  ;  he  was  perfectly 
well  known  to  them  as  one  of  the  most  "  rising  " 
youths  of  the  time,  and  their  own  literary  editor, 
Mr.  Harrison,  was  his  private  mentor.  And  yet 
there  is  the  half  truth  in  it,  that  his  business  deal- 
ings with  the  publishers  were  generally  conducted 
through  his  father,  who  made  very  fair  terms  for 
him,  as  things  went  then. 

In  April,  1843,  "  Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  I.,  was 
published ;  and  it  was  soon  the  talk  of  the  art 
world.  It  was  meant  to  be  audacious,  and  natu- 
rally created  a  storm.  The  free  criticisms  of  pub- 
lic favorites  made  an  impression,  not  because  they 
were  put  into  strong  language,  for  the  tone  of  the 
press  was  stronger  then  than  it  is  now,  as  a  whole ; 
but  because  they  were  backed  up  by  illustration 
and  argument.  It  was  evident  that  the  author 
knew  something  of  his  subject,  even  if  he  were 
all  wrong  in  his  conclusions.  He  could  not  be 
neglected,  though  he  might  be  protested  against, 
decried,  controverted.  Artists  especially,  who  do 
not  usually  see  themselves  as  others  see  them, 
and  are  not  accustomed  to  think  of   themselves 


TURNER  AND  THE  ANCIENTS.       1 33 

and  their  school  as  mere  dots  and  spangles  in  the 
perspective  of  history,  could  not  be  entirely  con- 
tent to  be  classed  as  Turner's  satellites.  Even  the 
gentle  Prout  was  indignant,  not  so  much  at  the 
"  five  strokes  of  a  reed  pen,"  but  at  the  want  of 
reverence  with  which  his  masters  and  friends  were 
treated.  Harding  thought  that  his  teaching  ought 
to  have  been  more  fully  acknowledged.  Turner 
was  embarrassed  at  the  greatness  thrust  upon  him. 
And  while  the  book  contained  something  that 
promised  to  suit  every  kind  of  reader,  every  one 
found  something  to  shock  him.  Critics  were 
scandalized  at  the  depreciation  of  Claude ;  the 
religious  were  outraged  at  the  comparison  of 
Turner,  in  a  passage  omitted  from  later  editions, 
to  the  Angel  of  the  Sun,  in  the  Apocalypse. 

But  readers  survive  a  few  shocks ;  very  liter- 
ally, they  first  endured,  then  pitied,  then  em- 
braced :  for  the  descriptive  passages  were  such  as 
had  never  appeared  before  in  prose ;  and  the  obvi- 
ous usefulness  of  the  analyses  of  natural  form  and 
effect  made  many  an  artist  read  on,  while  he  shook 
his  head.  Of  professed  connoisseurs,  such  as  re- 
viewed the  book  adversely  in  "  Blackwood  "  and 
the  "  Athenaeum,"  not  one  undertook  to  refute  it 
seriously  with  a  full  restatement  of  the  academic 
theory.  They  merely  attacked  a  detail  here  and 
there,  which  the  author  discussed  in  two  or  three 
replies,1  with  a  patience  that  showed  how  confi- 

1  Of  these  minor  battles,  one  of  the  hardest  fought  was  about 
Reflections  in  Water.     Mr.  J.  H.  Maw,  then  of  Hastings,  an  en- 


134       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

dent  he  was  in  his  position.  Next  year  a  second 
edition  appeared. 

He  had  the  good  word  of  some  of  the  best 
judges  of  literature.  "  Modern  Painters  "  lay  on 
Rogers's  table ;  and  Tennyson,  who  a  few  years 
before  had  beaten  young  Ruskin  out  of  the  field 
of  poetry,  was  so  taken  with  it  that  he  wrote  to 
his  publisher  to  borrow  it  for  him,  "  as  he  longed 
very  much  to  see  it,"  but  could  not  afford  to  buy 
it.  When  the  secret  of  the  "  Oxford  Graduate  " 
leaked  out,  as  it  did  very  soon,  through  the  proud 
father,  Mr.  John  was  lionized.  During  the  winter 
of  1843,  he  met  all  the  celebrities  of  the  day  at 
fashionable  dinner-tables ;  and  now  that  his  par- 
ents were  established  in  their  grander  house  on 
Denmark  Hill,  they  could  duly  return  the  hospi- 
talities of  the  great  world. 

It  was  one  very  satisfactory  result  of  the  suc- 
cess that  the  father  was  more  or  less  converted 
to  Turnerism,  and  lined  his  walls  with  Turner 
drawings,  which  became  the  great  attraction  of 
the  house,  far  outshining  its  seven  acres  of  garden 
and  orchard  and  shrubbery,  and  the  ampler  air  of 
cultured  ease.  For  a  new  year's  gift  to  his  son, 
he    bought    The    Slave    Ship,   one   of   Turner's 

lightened  patron  of  art,  and  an  accomplished  amateur  (to  say  no- 
thing, here,  of  his  earnestness  and  ability  in  many  other  spheres), 
maintained  that  Mr.  Ruskin  was  wrong  in  believing  that  the  reflect- 
ing surface  of  clear  water  receives  no  shadow ;  and  even  after  the 
reply,  which  can  now  be  read  in  Arrows  of  the  Chace,  stuck  to  his 
opinion.  It  was  a  good  instance  of  simple  misunderstanding  :  the 
experiment  can  be  tried  with  any  shiny  object,  such  as  a  watch. 
What  seems  to  be  shadow  disappears  when  you  look  across  it,  and 
catch  a  bright  reflection  in  it. 


DENMARK    HILL 
Mr.  Ruskin's  Home,  1843-72 


TURNER  AND  THE  ANCIENTS.       1 35 

latest  and  most  disputed  works,  since  then  taken 
to  America ;  and  he  was  all  eagerness  to  see  the 
next  volume  in  preparation. 

The  intention  was  to  carry  on  the  discussion 
of  truth,  with  further  illustrations  of  mountain 
form,  trees,  and  skies.  And  so  in  May,  1844,  they 
all  went  away  again,  that  the  artist-author  might 
prepare  drawings  for  his  plates.  He  was  going 
to  begin  with  the  geology  and  botany  of  Cha- 
mouni,  and  work  through  the  Alps,  eastward. 

At  Chamouni  they  had  the  good  fortune  to 
meet  with  Joseph  Couttet,  a  superannuated  guide, 
whom  they  engaged  to  accompany  the  eager  but 
inexperienced  mountaineer.  Couttet  was  one  of 
those  men  of  natural  ability  and  kindliness,  whose 
friendship  is  worth  more  than  much  intercourse 
with  worldly  celebrities,  and  for  many  years  after- 
wards Mr.  Ruskin  had  the  advantage  of  his  care, 
and  something  more  than  mere  attendance.  At 
any  rate,  under  such  guidance  he  could  climb 
where  he  pleased,  free  from  the  feeling  that  some- 
body at  home  was  anxious  about  him. 

He  was  not  unadventurous  in  his  scramblings, 
but  with  no  ambition  to  get  to  the  top  of  every- 
thing. He  wanted  to  observe  the  aspects  of 
mountain  form ;  and  his  careful  outlines,  slightly 
colored,  as  his  manner  then  was,  and  never  aim- 
ing at  picturesque  treatment,  record  the  structure 
of  the  rocks  and  the  state  of  the  snow  with  more 
than  photographic  accuracy.  A  photograph 
often  confuses  the  eye  with  unnecessary  detail ; 


I36      THE    LIFE   AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

these  drawings  seized  the  leading  lines,  the  im- 
portant features,  the  interesting  points.  For  ex- 
ample, in  his  Matterhorn  (a  drawing  of  1849),  as 
Mr.  Whymper  remarks  in  "  Scrambles  among  the 
Alps,"  there  are  particulars  noted  which  the  mere 
sketcher  neglects,  but  the  climber  finds  out,  on 
closer  intercourse,  to  be  the  essential  facts  of  the 
mountain's  anatomy.  All  this  is  not  picture-mak- 
ing, but  it  is  a  very  valuable  contribution  and 
preliminary  to  criticism. 

From  Chamouni  this  year  they  went  to  Sim- 
plon,  and  met  J.  D.  Forbes,  the  geologist,  whose 
"  viscous  theory  "  of  glaciers  Mr.  Ruskin  adopted 
and  defended  with  warmth  ever  after ;  and  then 
to  the  Bell'  Alp,  long  before  it  had  been  made  a 
place  of  popular  resort  by  Professor  Tyndall's 
notice.  The  Panorama  of  the  Simplon  from  the 
Bell'  Alp  is  still  to  be  found  in  the  Sheffield  Mu- 
seum, as  a  record  of  Mr.  Ruskin's  draughtsman- 
ship in  this  period.  Thence  to  Zermatt  with 
Osborne  Gordon  ;  Zermatt,  too,  unknown  to  the 
fashionable  tourist,  and  innocent  of  hotel  luxuries. 
It  is  curious  that,  at  first  sight,  Mr.  Ruskin  did 
not  like  the  Matterhorn.  It  was  altogether  too 
unlike  his  ideal  of  mountains.  It  was  not  at  all 
like  Cumberland  !  But  he  was  not  long  in  learn- 
ing to  appreciate  the  Alps  for  their  own  sake : 
so  that  he  could  write  to  Miss  Mitford  from 
Keswick  (in  1848,  I  believe):  "  As  for  our  moun- 
tains and  lakes,  it  is  in  vain  that  they  are  de- 
fended for  their  finish  or  their  prettiness.     The 


TURNER  AND  THE  ANCIENTS.        I  37 

people  who  admire  them  after  Switzerland  do 
not  understand  Switzerland,  —  even  Wordsworth 
does  not." 

After  another  visit  to  Chamouni  he  went  home 
by  way  of  Paris,  where  something  awaited  him 
that  upset  all  his  plans,  and  turned  his  energies 
into  an  unexpected  channel. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CHRISTIAN    ART. 

(1845-1847-) 

"  They  might  chirp  and  chatter,  come  and  go 
For  pleasure  or  profit,  her  men  alive  — 
My  business  was  hardly  with  them,  I  trow, 
But  with  empty  cells  of  the  human  hive  ; 
With  the  chapter-room,  the  cloister-porch, 

The  church's  apsis,  aisle,  or  nave, 
Its  crypt,  one  fingers  along  with  a  torch, 
Its  face,  set  full  for  the  sun  to  shave." 

Old  Pictures  in  Florence. 

At  Paris,  on  the  way  home  in  1844,  Mr.  Ruskin 
had  spent  some  days  in  studying  Titian  and  Bel- 
lini and  Perugino.  They  were  not  new  to  him  ; 
but  now  that  he  was  an  art  critic,  it  behooved 
him  to  improve  his  acquaintance  with  the  Old 
Masters.  "  To  admire  the  works  of  Pietro  Peru- 
gino "  was  one  thing ;  but  to  understand  them 
was  another,  —  a  thing  which  was  hardly  at- 
tempted by  "  the  Landscape  Artists  of  England," 
to  whom  the  author  of  "  Modern  Painters  "  had 
so  far  dedicated  his  services.  He  had  been  ex- 
tolling modernism,  and  depreciating  "  the  An- 
cients "  because  they  could  not  draw  rocks  and 
clouds  and  trees ;  and  he  was  fresh  from  his  scien- 
tific sketching  in  the  happy  hunting  ground  of 


CHRISTIAN    ART.  I  39 

the  modern  world.  A  few  days  in  the  Louvre 
made  him  the  devotee  of  ancient  art,  and  taught 
him  to  lay  aside  his  geology  for  history. 

In  one  way  the  development  was  easy.  The 
patient  attempt  to  copy  mountain  form  had  made 
him  sensitive  to  harmony  of  line;  and  in  the 
great  composers  of  Florence  and  Venice  he  found 
a  quality  of  abstract  design  which  tallied  with 
his  experience  of  what  was  beautiful  in  nature. 
Aiguilles  and  glaciers,  drawn  as  he  drew  them, 
and  the  figure  subjects  of  severe  Italian  draughts- 
men, are  beautiful  by  the  same  laws  of  composi- 
tion, however  different  the  associations  they  sug- 
gest. With  the  general  public,  and  with  many 
artists,  associations  easily  outweigh  abstractions  ; 
but  this  was  an  analytic  mind,  bent  then  upon 
the  problems  of  form,  and  ready  to  acknowledge 
them  no  less  in  Madonnas  than  in  mountains. 

But  he  had  been  learning  these  laws  of  beauty 
from  Turner  and  from  the  Alps ;  how  did  the 
ancients  come  by  them  ?  That  could  be  found 
only  in  a  thorough  study  of  their  lives  and  times, 
to  begin  with ;  to  which  he  devoted  his  winter, 
with  Rio  and  Lord  Lindsay  and  Mrs.  Jameson 
for  his  authorities.  He  found  that  his  foes,  Gas- 
par  Poussin  and  Canaletto  and  the  Dutch  land- 
scapist,  were  not  the  real  Old  Masters ;  that  there 
had  been  a  great  age  of  art  before  the  era  of  Van- 
dyck  and  Rubens,  —  even  before  Michelangelo 
and  Raphael ;  and  that  towards  setting  up  as  a 
critic  of  the  present,  he  must  understand  the  past, 


I4O      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

out  of  which  it  had  grown.  So  he  determined  to 
go  to  Florence  and  Venice,  and  study  the  reli- 
gious painters  at  first  hand. 

Mountain  study  and  Turner  were  not  to  be 
dropped.  For  example,  to  explain  the  obvious 
and  notorious  licenses  which  Turner  took  with 
topography,  it  was  necessary  to  see  in  what  these 
licenses  consisted.  Of  the  later  Swiss  drawings, 
one  of  the  wildest  and  most  impressive  was  the 
St.  Gothard;  Ruskin  wanted  to  find  Turner's 
point  of  view,  and  to  see  what  alterations  he  had 
made.  He  told  Turner  so ;  and  the  artist,  who 
knew  that  his  picture  had  been  realized  from  a 
very  slight  sketch,  was  naturally  rather  opposed 
to  this  test,  as  being,  from  his  point  of  view, 
merely  a  waste  of  time  and  trouble.  He  tried  to 
persuade  the  Ruskins  that,  as  the  Swiss  Sonder- 
bund  war  was  beginning,  traveling  would  not  be 
safe,  and  so  forth.  But  in  vain.  Mr.  John  was 
allowed  to  go  for  the  first  time  alone,  without  his 
parents,  taking  only  a  servant,  and  meeting  the 
trustworthy  Couttet  at  Geneva. 

With  seven  months  at  his  own  disposal,  he  did 
a  vast  amount  of  work,  especially  in  drawing. 
The  studies  of  mountain  form  and  Italian  design, 
in  the  year  before,  had  given  him  a  greater  inter- 
est in  the  "  Liber  Studiorum,"  Turner's  early  book 
of  essays  in  composition.  He  found  there  that 
use  of  the  pure  line  about  which  he  has  since 
said  so  much;  together  with  a  thoughtfully  de- 
vised scheme  of   light  and  shade   in  mezzotint, 


OLIVE-TREE    AT    CARRARA 
By  John  R us  kin,  /S^j 


CHRISTIAN    ART.  141 

devoted  to  the  treatment  of  landscape  in  the 
same  spirit  as  that  in  which  the  Italian  masters 
treated  figure  subjects  in  their  pen  and  bistre 
studies.  And  just  as  he  had  imitated  the  Rogers 
vignettes  in  his  boyhood,  now  in  his  youth  he 
tried  to  emulate  the  fine  abstract  flow  and  search- 
ing expressiveness  of  the  etched  line,  and  the 
studied  breadth  of  shade,  by  using  the  quill  pen 
with  washes  of  monochrome,  or  sometimes  with 
subdued  color.  This  dwelling  upon  outline  as 
not  only  representative,  but  decorative  in  itself, 
has  sometimes  led  Mr.  Ruskin  into  over-emphasis 
and  a  mannered  grace ;  but  the  value  of  his  pen 
and  wash  style  has  never  been  fairly  tested  in 
landscape.  His  best  drawings  are  known  to  very 
few;  some  of  his  finest  work  was  thrown  away 
on  subjects  which  were  never  completed,  or  were 
ruined  by  rough  experiments  when  he  had  tired 
of  them,  and  no  other  man  with  half  his  feeling 
and  knowledge  has  attempted  to  work  in  the 
same  method. 

At  first  he  kept  pretty  closely  to  monochrome. 
His  object  was  form,  and  his  special  talent  for 
draughtsmanship  rather  than  for  color,  which  de- 
veloped quite  late  in  his  life.  But  it  was  this  win- 
ter's study  of  the  "  Liber  Studiorum  "  that  started 
him  on  his  own  characteristic  course ;  and  while 
we  have  no  pen  and  wash  work  of  his  before 
1845  (except  a  few  experiments  after  Prout),  we 
find  him  now  using  the  pen  continually  during  all 
the  "  Modern  Painters  "  period. 


142       THE    LIFE   AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

On  reaching  the  Lake  of  Geneva  he  wrote,  or 
sketched,  one  of  his  best  known  pieces  of  verse, 
"  Mont  Blanc  Revisited ; "  and  a  few  others  fol- 
lowed, the  last  of  the  long  series  of  poems,  which 
had  once  been  his  chief  interest  and  aim  in  life. 
With  this  lonely  journey  there  seemed  to  come 
new  and  deeper  feelings;  with  his  increased  lit- 
erary power,  fresh  resources  of  diction ;  and  he 
was  never  so  near  being  a  poet  as  when  he  gave 
up  writing  verse.  Too  condensed  to  be  easily 
understood,  too  solemn  in  their  movement  to  be 
trippingly  read,  the  lines  on  "  The  Arve  at  Cluse," 
on  "  Mont  Blanc,"  and  "  The  Glacier,"  should  not 
be  passed  over  as  nothing  more  than  rhetorical. 
And  the  reflections  on  the  loungers  at  Conflans 
are  full  of  significance  of  the  spirit  in  which  he 
was  gradually  approaching  the  great  problems  of 
his  life,  to  pass  through  art  into  the  earnest  study 
of  human  conduct  and  its  final  cause :  — 

"  Why  stand  ye  here  all  the  day  idle  ?  " 

Have  you  in  heaven  no  hope  —  on  earth  no  care  — 
No  foe  in  hell,  ye  things  of  sty  and  stall, 
That  congregate  like  flies,  and  make  the  air 

Rank  with  your  fevered  sloth  ;  that  hourly  call 
The  sun,  which  should  your  servant  be,  to  bear 

Dread  witness  on  you,  with  uncounted  wane 
And  unregarded  rays,  from  peak  to  peak 

Of  piny-gnomoned  mountain  moved  in  vain  ? 
Behold,  the  very  shadows  that  ye  seek 

For  slumber,  write  along  the  wasted  wall 
Your  condemnation.     They  forgot  not,  they, 

Their  ordered  functions ;  and  determined  fall, 
Nor  useless  perish.     But^w  count  your  day 


CHRISTIAN    ART.  1 43 

By  sins,  and  write  your  difference  from  clay 
In  bonds  you  break,  and  laws  you  disobey. 

God  !  who  hast  given  the  rocks  their  fortitude, 
Their  sap  unto  the  forests,  and  their  food 

And  vigor  to  the  busy  tenantry 

Of  happy,  soulless  things  that  wait  on  Thee, 
Hast  Thou  no  blessing  where  Thou  gav'st  thy  blood  ? 

Wilt  Thou  not  make  thy  fair  creation  whole  ? 
Behold  and  visit  this  thy  vine  for  good,  — 

Breathe  in  this  human  dust  its  living  soul. 

He  was  still  deeply  religious,  —  more  deeply 
so  than  before;  and  found  the  echo  of  his  own 
thoughts  in  George  Herbert,  with  whom  he  "  com- 
muned in  spirit "  while  he  traveled  through  the 
Alps.  But  the  forms  of  outward  religion  were 
losing  their  hold  over  him,  in  proportion  as  his 
inward  religion  became  more  real  and  intense. 
It  was  only  a  few  days  after  writing  these  lines 
that  he  "  broke  the  Sabbath  "  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  by  climbing  a  hill  after  church.  That 
was  the  first  shot  fired  in  a  war,  in  one  of  the 
strangest  and  saddest  wars  between  conscience 
and  reason  that  biography  records;  strange,  be- 
cause the  opposing  forces  were  so  nearly  matched, 
and  sad,  because  the  struggle  lasted  until  their 
field  of  battle  was  desolated,  before  either  won  a 
victory.  Thirty  years  later,  the  cleverest  of  his 
Oxford  hearers  *  drew  his  portrait  under  the  name 
of  the  man  whose  sacred  verse  was  his  guide  and 
mainstay  in  this  youthful  pilgrim's  progress ;  and 
the  words  put  into  his  mouth  summed  up  with 

1  W.  H.  Mallock,  The  New  Republic. 


144      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

merciless  insight  the  issue  of  those  conflicts. 
11 '  For  I !  who  am  I  that  speak  to  you?  Am  I  a 
believer?  No.  I  am  a  doubter,  too.  Once  I 
could  pray  every  morning,  and  go  forth  to  my 
day's  labor  stayed  and  comforted.  But  now  I 
can  pray  no  longer.  You  have  taken  my  God 
away  from  me,  and  I  know  not  where  you  have 
laid  Him.  My  only  consolation  in  my  misery  is 
that  I  am  inconsolable  for  his  loss.  Yes,'  cried 
Mr.  Herbert,  his  voice  rising  into  a  kind  of  threat- 
ening wail,  '  though  you  have  made  me  miser- 
able, I  am  not  yet  content  with  my  misery.  And 
though  I,  too,  have  said  in  my  heart  that  there  is 
no  God,  and  that  there  is  no  more  profit  in  wis- 
dom than  in  folly,  yet  there  is  one  folly  that  I 
will  not  give  tongue  to.  I  will  not  say  Peace, 
peace,  when  there  is  no  peace.'  " 

Later  on  we  have  to  tell  how  he  dwelt  in 
Doubting  Castle,  and  how  he  escaped.  But  the 
pilgrim  had  not  yet  met  Giant  Despair ;  and  his 
progress  was  very  pleasant  in  that  spring  of  1845, 
the  year  of  fine  weather,  as  he  drove  round  the 
Riviera,  and  the  cities  of  Tuscany  opened  out 
their  treasures  to  him.  There  was  Lucca,  with 
San  Frediano  and  the  glories  of  twelfth-century 
architecture ;  with  Fra  Bartolommeo's  picture  of 
the  Madonna  with  the  Magdalen,  and  St.  Cathe- 
rine of  Siena,  his  initiation  into  the  significance 
of  early  religious  painting;  and,  taking  hold  of 
his  imagination,  in  her  marble  sleep,  more  power- 
fully than  any  flesh  and  blood,  the  dead  lady  of 


CHRISTIAN    ART.  1 45 

St.  Martin's  church,  Ilaria  di  Caretto.  There 
was  Pisa,  with  the  jewel  shrine  of  Sta.  Maria  della 
Spina,  then  undestroyed ;  the  excitement  of  street 
sketching  among  a  sympathetic  crowd  of  frater- 
nizing Italians ;  the  Abbe  Rosini,  professor  of 
fine  arts,  whom  he  made  friends  with,  endured 
as  lecturer,  and  persuaded  into  scaffold-building 
in  the  Campo  Santo,  for  study  of  the  frescoes. 
And  there  was  Florence,  with  Giotto's  campanile, 
where  the  young  Protestant  frequented  the  monas- 
teries, and  made  hay  with  monks,  and  sketched 
with  his  new-found  friends  Rudolf  Durheim  of 
Berne  and  Dieudonne  the  French  purist ;  and 
spent  long  days  copying  Angelico  and  annotat- 
ing Ghirlandajo,  fevered  with  the  sun  of  Italy  at 
its  strongest,  and  with  the  rapture  of  discovery 
"which  turns  the  unaccustomed  head  like  Chi- 
anti  wine." 

Couttet  got  him  away,  at  last,  to  the  Alps ;  worn 
out  and  in  despondent  reaction  after  all  this  ex- 
citement. He  spent  a  month  at  Macugnaga,  read- 
ing Shakespeare  and  trying  to  draw  boulders ; 
drifting  gradually  back  into  strength  enough  to 
attack  the  next  piece  of  work,  the  study  of  Turner 
sites  on  the  St.  Gothard.  There  he  made  the 
drawings  afterwards  engraved  in  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers ;  "  and  hearing  that  J.  D.  Harding,  who,  it 
seems,  had  quite  forgiven  him  his  criticisms,  was 
going  to  Venice,  he  arranged  for  a  meeting  at 
Baveno  on  the  Lago  Maggiore.  They  sketched 
together ;  Ruskin  perhaps  emulating  his  friend's 


I46       THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

slap-dash  style  in  the  Sunset,  reproduced  in  his 
"  Poems,"  and  illustrating  his  own  in  the  Water- 
mill.  And  so  they  drove  together  to  Verona,  and 
thence  to  Venice. 

At  Venice  they  stayed  in  Danieli's  hotel  on  the 
Riva  degli  Schiavoni,  and  began  by  sketching  pic- 
turesque canal-life.  Mr.  Boxall,  R.  A.,  and  Mrs. 
Jameson,  the  historian  of  sacred  and  legendary 
art,  were  their  companions.  Another  old  friend, 
Joseph  Severn,  had  in  1843  gained  one  of  the 
prizes  at  the  Westminster  Hall  Cartoons  Competi- 
tion ;  and  a  letter  from  Mr.  Ruskin,  referring  to 
the  work  there,  shows  how  he  still  pondered  on  the 
subject  that  had  been  haunting  him  in  the  Alps. 
"With  your  hopes  for  the  elevation  of  English  art 
by  means  of  fresco  I  cannot  sympathize.  ...  It 
is  not  the  material  nor  the  space  that  can  give 
us  thoughts,  passions,  or  power.  I  see  on  our 
Academy  walls  nothing  but  what  is  ignoble  in 
small  pictures,  and  would  be  disgusting  in  large 
ones.  ...  It  is  not  the  love  of  fresco  that  we 
want ;  it  is  the  love  of  God  and  his  creatures  ;  it 
is  humility,  and  charity,  and  self-denial,  and  fast- 
ing, and  prayer ;  it  is  a  total  change  of  character. 
We  want  more  faith  and  less  reasoning,  less 
strength  and  more  trust.  You  want  neither  walls, 
nor  plaster,  nor  colors — (a  ne  fait  rien  a  Vaffaire: 
it  is  Giotto,  and  Ghirlandajo,  and  Angelico  that 
you  want,  and  that  you  will  and  must  want  until 
this  disgusting  nineteenth  century  has  —  I  can't 
say  breathed,  but  steamed  its  last."     So  early  he 


CHRISTIAN    ART.  1 47 

had  taken  up,  and  wrapped  around  him,  the  man- 
tle of  Cassandra. 

But  he  was  suddenly  to  find  the  sincerity  of 
Ghirlandajo  and  the  religious  significance  of  An- 
gelico  united  with  the  matured  power  of  art. 
Without  knowing  what  they  were  to  meet,  Har- 
ding and  he  found  themselves  one  day  in  the 
Scuola  di  S.  Rocco,  and  face  to  face  with  Tin- 
toret. 

It  was  the  fashion  before  Mr.  Ruskin's  time, 
and  it  has  been  the  fashion  since,  to  undervalue 
Tintoret.  He  is  not  pious  enough  for  the  purists, 
nor  decorative  enough  for  the  Pre-Raphaelites. 
The  ruin  or  the  restoration  of  almost  all  his  pic- 
tures makes  it  impossible  for  the  ordinary  amateur 
to  judge  them ;  they  need  reconstruction  in  the 
mind's  eye,  and  that  is  a  dangerous  process.  Mr. 
Ruskin  himself,  as  he  grew  older,  found  more  in- 
terest in  the  playful  industry  of  Carpaccio  than  in 
the  laborious  games,  the  stupendous  Titan  feats, 
of  Tintoret.  But  at  this  moment,  solemnized  be- 
fore the  problems  of  life,  he  found  these  problems 
hinted  in  the  mystic  symbolism  of  the  School  of 
S.  Rocco;  a  recent  convert  to  Pre-Reformation 
Christianity,  he  found  its  completed  outcome  in 
Tintoret 's  interpretation  of  the  life  of  Christ  and 
the  types  of  the  Old  Testament ;  fresh  from  the 
stormy  grandeur  of  the  St.  Gothard,  he  found  the 
lurid  skies  and  looming  giants  of  the  Visitation, 
or  the  Baptism,  or  the  Crucifixion,  reechoing  the 
subjects  of  Turner  as  "  deep  answering  to  deep ;  " 


I48       THE    LIFE   AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

and,  with  Harding  of  the  Broad  Brush,  he  recog- 
nized the  mastery  of  landscape  execution  in  the 
Flight  into  Egypt,  and  the  St.  Mary  in  the  Desert. 

He  devoted  the  rest  of  his  time  chiefly  to  cata- 
loguing and  copying  Tintoret.  The  catalogue 
appeared  in  "  Stones  of  Venice,"  which  was  sug- 
gested by  this  visit,  and  begun  by  some  sketches 
of  architectural  detail,  and  the  acquisition  of  da- 
guerreotypes, —  a  new  invention,  which  delighted 
Mr.  Ruskin  immensely,  as  it  had  delighted  Turner, 
with  trustworthy  records  of  detail  which  some- 
times eluded  even  his  industry  and  accuracy. 

At  last  his  friends  were  gone ;  and,  left  alone, 
he  overworked  himself,  as  usual,  before  leaving 
Venice  with  crammed  portfolios  and  closely  writ- 
ten notebooks.  At  Padua,  he  was  stopped  by  a 
fever ;  all  through  France  he  was  pursued  by 
what,  from  his  account,  appears  to  have  been 
some  form  of  diphtheria,  averted  only,  as  he  be- 
lieved, in  direct  answer  to  earnest  prayer.  At 
last  his  eventful  pilgrimage  was  ended,  and  he 
was  restored  to  his  home  and  his  parents. 

It  was  not  long  before  he  was  at  work  again 
in  his  new  study;  looking  out  upon  the  quiet 
meadow  and  grazing  cows  of  Denmark  Hill,  and 
rapidly  throwing  into  form  the  fresh  impressions 
of  the  summer.  Still  thoroughly  Aristotelian  and 
Lockean  in  method,  he  found  no  difficulty  in 
making  his  philosophy  the  vehicle  of  religious 
thought.  He  was  strongly  influenced  by  the 
sermons  of  Canon  Melvill,  —  the  same  preacher 


CHRISTIAN    ART.  1 49 

whom  Browning  in  his  youth  admired,  —  a  good 
orator  and  sound  analytic  expositor,  though  not  a 
great  or  independent  thinker.  Osborne  Gordon 
had  recommended  him  to  read  Hooker;  and  he 
caught  the  tone  and  style  of  the  "  Ecclesiastical 
Polity "  only  too  readily,  so  that  much  of  his 
work  of  that  winter,  the  more  philosophical  part 
of  "  Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  II.,  was  damaged  by 
inversions,  and  Elizabethan  quaintness  as  of  ruff 
and  train,  long  epexegetical  sentences,  and  far- 
sought  pomposity  of  diction.  It  was  only  when 
he  had  waded  through  the  philosophic  chaos, 
which  he  set  himself  to  survey,  that  he  could  lay 
aside  his  borrowed  stilts,  and  stand  on  his  own 
feet,  in  the  Tintoret  descriptions,  —  rather  stiff, 
yet,  from  foregone  efforts.  But,  after  all,  who 
writes  philosophy  in  graceful  English? 

For  one  must  remember  that  this  was  really  a 
philosophical  work,  and  not  simply  a  volume  of 
essays  or  sermons,  which  any  preacher  or  jour- 
nalist could  turn  out  by  the  piece.  It  may  be 
wrongly  founded;  but  it  is  founded  on  Locke 
and  Aristotle,  like  the  first  volume.  The  division 
of  pleasures  into  higher  and  lower  may  be  illu- 
sory ;  but  it  is  the  logical  outcome  of  the  division 
of  ideas  into  those  of  sensation  and  those  of 
reflection.  It  may  be  foolish  to  mix  the  whole 
question  up  with  morals :  but  so  do  Kant  and 
Schopenhauer.  It  may  be  absurd  to  express  a 
theory  of  art  in  terms  of  theology:  but  so  do 
Plato  and  Hegel,  without  reproof.     In  short,  the 


150      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

significance  of  the  work,  as  a  reflex  of  the  great 
movement  of  German  philosophy,  and  as  the 
completion  of  the  English  school  of  aesthetics 
begun  by  Coleridge ;  as  a  last  attempt  at  a  meta- 
physic  of  the  subject,  before  a  new  era  of  materi- 
alistic thinking  set  in,  all  this  can  be  grasped  only 
by  a  reader  who  has  taken  some  interest  in  the 
history  of  thought.  He  will  see,  what  we  can 
hardly  loiter  to  explain,  whence  Ruskin  gets  his 
"  Theoria,"  and  why  he  opposes  it  to  "  yEsthesis ; " 
how  the  sense  of  rightness,  law-abiding,  dominates 
him,  so  that  he  finds  that  all  our  pleasure  is  to  be 
traced  to  acquiescence  in  it ;  how  he  identifies 
this  natural  law  with  the  divine  method  of  crea- 
tion, in  all  its  various  moods,  such  as  infinity, 
unity,  repose,  and  so  forth ;  and  traces  its  effects 
in  animated  beings  as  well  as  in  stocks  and  stones ; 
producing  what  we  call  beauty  as  the  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  a  certain  all-round  rightness, 
the  object  of  admiration,  hope,  and  love,  not  of  the 
lust  of  the  flesh  and  the  merely  sensual  desire 
of  the  eye.  And  in  the  same  way  the  student  of 
philosophy  will  recognize  a  train  of  systematic 
thought  in  Ruskin's  treatment  of  the  imagination 
as  something  beyond  the  mere  effect  of  sensation, 
—  as  simple  conception  would  be,  which,  in  ex- 
cess, is  insanity.  And  he  will  find  this  defense 
of  genius  more  and  more  interesting,  when  he  has 
disentangled  it  from  the  cumbrous  ornaments  in 
which  it  is  enveloped ;  more  and  more  valuable, 
as  being  quite  unique  in  English  thought;  while, 


us    <* 


* 

£> 


CHRISTIAN    ART.  151 

on  re-reading,  the  appositeness  of  the  illustrative 
passages  becomes  more  evident ;  and,  the  thread 
of  the  idea  once  held,  you  can  look  about  you  at 
the  varied  hedges  and  vistas  and  nooks  in  the 
labyrinth  of  thought  through  which  John  Ruskin 
first  wandered,  that  winter  of  1845,  with  beating 
heart  and  earnest  outlook,  in  pursuit  of  the  Mino- 
taur of  materialism,  the  hidden,  pampered  brute 
instinct  to  which  his  contemporaries  immolated 
the  virgin  tribute  of  poetry  and  art. 

When  his  book  came  out  he  was  away  again  in 
Italy,  trying  to  show  his  father  all  that  he  had 
seen  in  the  Campo  Santo  and  Giotto's  Tower,  and 
to  explain  "  why  it  more  than  startled  him."  The 
good  man  hardly  felt  the  force  of  it  all  at  once. 
How  should  he  ?  And  there  were  little  passages 
of  arms  and  some  heartquaking  and  head-shak- 
ing ;  until  Mr.  Dale,  the  old  schoolmaster,  wrote 
that  he  had  heard  no  less  a  man  than  Sydney 
Smith  mention  the  new  book  in  public,  in  the 
presence  of  "  distinguished  literary  characters,"  as 
a  work  of  "  transcendent  talent,  presenting  the 
most  original  views,  in  the  most  elegant  and  pow- 
erful language,  which  would  work  a  complete 
revolution  in  the  world  of  taste." 

When  the  chief  of  the  critics  nodded  approval, 
what  could  the  rest  of  the  mandarin-college  do 
but  nod  ?  The  first  volume  had  paved  the  way 
to  success ;  and  during  this  journey,  the  young 
author  was  correcting  the  proofs  of  a  third  edi- 
tion.    Turner   was   already   a   household    word ; 


152       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF    JOHN    RUSKIN. 

Angelico  and  the  Primitives  were  coming  into 
notice  :  Ruskin  never  claimed  to  have  discovered 
them ;  only  to  have  expounded  them.  And  Tin- 
toret  was  a  great  unknown.  There  were  plain 
folk  who  wondered  at  this  strange  association  of 
subjects  so  apparently  diverse  in  all  namable 
qualities  ;  but  the  best  men  saw  that  the  young 
writer  had  taken  a  firm  and  defensible  position 
akin  to  Carlyle's  ;  that  like  Carlyle  he  was  talking 
and  thinking  over  the  heads  of  the  crowd ;  and 
they  forgave  what  there  was  to  forgive  —  some 
affectation  and  hasty  dogmatism  —  for  the  sake 
of  the  "  fundamental  brain-work  "  which  they  saw 
in  this  book. 

When  he  returned  home,  it  was  to  find  a  re- 
spectful welcome.  His  word  on  matters  of  art 
was  now  really  worth  something;  and  before  long 
it  was  called  for.  The  National  Gallerv  was  com- 
paratively  in  its  infancy.  It  had  been  established 
less  than  twenty-five  years,  and  its  manager,  Mr. 
Eastlake  (afterwards  Sir  Charles),  had  his  hands 
full,  what  with  rascally  dealers  in  forged  old  mas- 
ters, and  incompetent  picture  -  cleaners,  and  an 
economical  government,  and  a  public  that  did  not 
know  its  own  mind  and  would  not  trust  his  judg- 
ment. A  great  outcry  was  set  up  against  him  for 
buying  bad  works,  and  spoiling  the  best  by  res- 
toration. Mr.  Ruskin  wrote  very  temperately  to 
the  "  Times,"  pointing  out  that  the  damage  had 
been  slight  compared  with  what  was  being  done 
everywhere  else  ;  and  suggesting  that,  prevention 


CHRISTIAN    ART.  1 53 

being  better  than  cure,  the  pictures  should  be  put 
under  glass,  for  then  they  would  not  need  the  re- 
curring attentions  of  the  restorer.  But  he  blamed 
the  management  for  spending  large  sums  on  added 
examples  of  Guido  and  Rubens,  while  they  had  no 
Angelico,  no  Ghirlandajo,  no  good  Perugino,  only 
one  Bellini ;  and,  in  a  word,  left  his  new  friends, 
the  early  Christian  artists,  unrepresented.  He 
suggested  that  pictures  might  be  picked  up  for 
next  to  nothing  in  Italy ;  and  he  begged  that  the 
collection  might  be  made  historical  and  educa- 
tional by  being  fully  representative,  and  chrono- 
logically arranged. 

Such  ideals  cannot  be  realized  at  a  stroke ;  but 
as  we  walk  round  our  Gallery  now,  we  can  be 
thankful  that  his  voice  was  raised,  and  not  in  vain ; 
and  rejoice  that  in  many  a  case  justice  has  been 
done  to  "  the  wronged  great  soul  of  an  ancient 
master." 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    SEVEN     LAMPS. 
(1847-1849.) 

"  They  dreamt  not  of  a  perishable  home 
Who  thus  could  build." 

Wordsworth. 

Of  the  leading  men  who  acknowledged  the  ris- 
ing star,  it  was  natural  that  the  foremost  in  their 
recognition  should  be  Scotsmen.  Hogg  and 
Pringle  had  been  the  boy-poet's  first  encoura- 
gers ;  and  now  the  art  critic  was  hailed  by  Sydney 
Smith,  a  former  Edinburgh  professor ;  patron- 
ized by  John  Murray,  who  got  him  to  write  notes 
on  pictures  for  his  "  Guide ; "  and  employed  by 
Lockhart  on  the  staff  of  the  "  Quarterly."  "  The 
happiest  lot  on  earth  is  to  be  born  a  Scotchman," 
says  R.  L.  Stevenson ;  and  it  is  certainly  conven- 
ient for  the  aspirant  to  artistic  or  literary  fame. 

Lockhart  was  a  person  of  great  interest  to  young 
Ruskin,  who  so  worshiped  Scott ;  and  Lock- 
hart's  daughter,  even  without  her  personal  charm, 
would  have  attracted  him,  as  the  actual  grandchild 
of  the  great  Sir  Walter.  It  was  for  her  sake, 
rather  than  for  the  honor  of  writing  in  the  famous 
"  Quarterly,"  that  he  went,  after  a  fatiguing  win- 


THE   SEVEN    LAMPS.  1 55 

ter  in  London  society,  to  Ambleside,  to  get  peace 
and  quiet  for  his  review  of  Lord  Lindsay's  "  Chris- 
tian Art."  It  was  not  only  society  that  had 
fatigued  him.  He  had  never  quite  recovered  from 
the  tendency  to  consumption  which  had  sent  him 
down  from  Oxford  ;  and  a  weakness  of  the  spine 
was  now  keeping  him  constantly  more  or  less  of 
an  invalid.  The  writing  of  his  second  volume, 
during  several  months  of  mental  tension  and  emo- 
tional excitement,  had  wearied  him  out,  and  the 
tour  that  followed  had  not  sufficed  for  relaxation, 
—  chiefly  because  he  was  beginning  to  find  him- 
self drifting  away  from  that  earlier  happy  confi- 
dence in  his  parents'  beliefs  and  reliance  on  their 
sympathy.  His  father  and  he  pulled  different 
ways,  —  not  openly,  not  admitting  such  a  thing 
even  to  themselves ;  for,  some  years  after,  the 
father  wrote  that  his  son  had  "  never  cost  him  a 
single  pang  that  could  be  avoided."  But  that  was 
because  the  son  never  hesitated  to  sacrifice  him- 
self and  his  wishes  to  please  his  father.  And 
now,  it  was  not  the  least  trying  sacrifice,  that  his 
father  should  be  opposed  to  the  idea  he  had  en- 
tertained of  recommending  himself  to  Lockhart 
and  his  daughter ;  and  that  he  should  find  his 
parents,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world, 
arranging  his  affairs  with  an  eye  to  what  they  be- 
lieved to  be  his  interests,  and  not  with  regard  to 
his  inclinations. 

With  all  his  intellectual  independence  Mr.  Rus- 
kin  was,  and  is,  the  least  selfish  of  men.    The  fact 


156      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

has  been  obvious  to  many  a  one  who  has  taken 
advantage  of  it,  and  scorned  it  as  a  weakness.  But 
there  have  been  people  at  all  times  to  whom  his 
character  was  more  estimable  than  his  genius : 
people  like  Miss  Mitford,  who  wrote  (early  in  this 
year  1847)  that  he  was  "  certainly  the  most  charm- 
ing person  she  had  ever  known."  With  unselfish- 
ness there  generally  goes  an  unsuspicious  habit, 
too  little  on  its  guard  against  vulgar  knavery  and 
folly  ;  and  a  passion  for  abstract  justice,  that  does 
not  stop  to  weigh  consequences  or  circumstances, 
and  is  liable  to  end  in  disappointment  and  bitter- 
ness, like  Shakespeare's  Timon,  "  When  man's 
worst  sin  is,  he  does  too  much  good." 

After  a  summer  visit  to  Oxford,  working  in  the 
geological  section  at  a  meeting  of  the  British 
Association,  Mr.  Ruskin's  health  broke  down 
again,  and  he  was  sent  to  Leamington  to  his  old 
doctor,  Jephson,  once  more  a  consumption  pa- 
tient. Dr.  Jephson  again  dieted  him  into  health  ; 
and  he  went  to  Scotland  with  a  new-found  friend, 
Mr.  William  Macdonald  Macdonald  of  St.  Mar- 
tin's. He  had  no  taste  for  sport ;  one  battue  was 
enough  for  him ;  and  the  rest  of  the  visit  was 
spent  in  digging  thistles,  and  thinking  over  them 
and  the  significance  of  the  curse  of  Eden,  so 
strangely  now  at  last  interwoven  with  his  own 
life,  —  "  thorns  also  and  thistles." 

On  his  way  back  he  stopped  at  Bower's  Well, 
Perth,  where  his  parents  had  been  married ;  and 
in  accordance  with  their  wishes  proposed  marriage 


THE    SEVEN    LAMPS.  1 57 

to  the  young  lady  for  whom,  some  years  earlier, 
he  had  written  "  The  King  of  the  Golden  River." 
She  had  grown  up  into  a  perfect  Scotch  beauty, 
another  Fair  Maid  of  Perth,  with  every  gift  of 
health  and  spirits  which  would  compensate,  as 
they  thought,  his  retiring  and  morbid  nature. 
And  if  she,  by  obedience  to  her  own  parents,  got 
the  wealth  and  position  they  sought  for  her,  on 
the  other  hand  the  dutiful  son  easily  persuaded 
himself  that  he  was,  after  all,  the  luckiest  of  mor- 
tals. He  was  ready  to  do  anything,  to  promise 
anything,  for  so  charming  a  prize.  The  parents 
on  each  side  had  their  several  conditions  to 
make;  but  united  in  hastening  on  the  event,  alike 
"  dreaming  of  a  perishable  home." 

In  the  Notes  on  Exhibitions  added  to  a  new 
edition  of  "  Modern  Painters,"  then  in  the  press, 
the  author  mentions  a  "  hurried  visit  to  Scotland 
in  the  spring  "of  1848.  An  old  newspaper-cut- 
ting betrays  the  reason  of  the  journey,  by  record- 
ing his  marriage  on  the  10th  of  April.  The 
young  couple  went  to  Keswick,  whence  on  Good 
Friday  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Miss  Mitford :  "  I 
begin  to  feel  that  all  the  work  I  have  been  doing, 
and  all  the  loves  I  have  been  cherishing,  are  in- 
effective and  frivolous  —  that  these  are  not  times 
for  watching  clouds  or  dreaming  over  quiet  waters ; 
that  more  serious  work  is  to  be  done ;  and  that 
the  time  for  endurance  has  come  rather  than  for 
meditation,  and  for  hope  rather  than  for  happi- 
ness.    Happy   those   whose    hope,    without    this 


158      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

severe  and  tearful  rending  away  of  all  the  props 
and  stability  of  earthly  enjoyments,  has  been  fixed 
1  where  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling.'  Mine 
was  not ;  it  was  based  on  '  those  pillars  of  the 
earth  '  which  are  '  astonished  at  His  reproof.'  I 
have,  however,  passed  this  week  very  happily  here. 
We  have  a  good  clergyman,  Mr.  Myers ;  and  I 
am  recovering  trust  and  tranquillity.  I  had  been 
wiser  to  have  come  to  your  fair  English  pastures 
and  flowering  meadows,  rather  than  to  these  moor- 
lands, for  they  make  me  feel  too  painfully  the 
splendor,  not  to  be  in  any  wise  resembled  or  re- 
placed, of  those  mighty  scenes  which  I  can  reach 
no  more  —  at  least  for  a  time.  I  am  thinking, 
however,  of  a  tour  among  our  English  abbeys." 

The  pilgrimage  began  with  Salisbury,  where  a 
few  days'  sketching  in  the  damp  and  draughts  of 
the  cathedral  laid  the  bridegroom  low,  and  brought 
the  wedding  tour  to  an  untimely  end.  When  he 
was  thought  to  be  recovered,  the  whole  family 
started  for  the  Continent,  but  a  relapse  in  the  pa- 
tient's condition  brought  them  back.  At  last,  in 
August,  the  young  people  were  seen  safely  off  to 
Normandy,  where  they  went  by  easy  stages  from 
town  to  town,  studying  the  remains  of  Gothic 
building.  In  October  they  returned,  and  settled 
in  a  house  of  their  own,  at  31  Park  Street,  where 
during  the  winter  Mr.  Ruskin  wrote  "  The  Seven 
Lamps  of  Architecture,"  and,  as  a  bit  of  by-work, 
a  notice  of  Samuel  Prout  for  the  "  Art  Journal." 

"  The  Seven  Lamps "  or  Laws  "  of  Architec- 


THE    SEVEN    LAMPS.  1 59 

ture,"  —  "  Thy  word  is  a  lamp  unto  my  feet,"  the 
Psalmist  said,  —  and  so,  not  practical  rules  of 
art,  but  divine  conditions  affecting  man  as  a 
building  creature,  and  the  work  of  his  hands  as 
the  expression  of  his  mind ;  complicated,  too,  with 
those  seven  lamps  which  are  the  churches  of 
latter-day  Christianity,  and  their  light  of  warning, 
of  reproof,  or  of  encouragement,  —  "  The  Seven 
Lamps  "  was  not  meant  to  be  either  an  instructive 
manual  or  an  historical  essay.  Something  of  the 
sort  had  been  promised  as  part  of  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers," an  inquiry  upon  the  aspects  of  architecture 
as  seen  by  the  artist,  just  as  the  author  was  writ- 
ing on  the  aspects  of  mountains  or  waves ;  and 
this  book  is  practically  one  volume  of  the  greater 
work,  illustrating  the  theory  of  beauty  and  imagi- 
nation stated  in  Volume  II.  But  the  feelings 
with  which  he  had  written  three  years  before  had 
gathered  strength,  both  through  the  personal  ex- 
periences he  had  been  undergoing,  and  through 
the  increasing  seriousness  of  public  turmoil  and 
discontent  in  that  memorable  year  of  Chartism  at 
home  and  revolutions  abroad,  1848. 

"  The  aspect  of  the  years  that  approach  us,"  he 
writes,  "  is  as  solemn  as  it  is  full  of  mystery ;  and 
the  weight  of  evil  against  which  we  have  to  con- 
tend is  increasing  like  the  letting  out  of  water. 
It  is  no  time  for  the  idleness  of  metaphysics,  or 
the  entertainment  of  the  arts.  The  blasphemies 
of  the  earth  are  waxing  louder,  and  its  miseries* 
heaped  heavier,  every  day."     This  was  his  plea 


l6o      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

for  considering  architecture  in  a  new  light,  as  a 
language  of  the  human  mind  ;  in  the  past,  bearing 
witness  to  faith  and  sincerity,  and  in  the  present, 
as  a  means  of  testing  the  moral  symptoms  of  the 
nation  "  that  thus  could  build." 

He  showed,  as  he  had  done  in  the  "  Poetry  of 
Architecture,"  that  the  word  meant  more  than 
"  building ; "  it  meant  the  expression  of  thought 
and  feeling  in  and  upon  buildings ;  and  that  this 
was  seen  especially  in  sacred  buildings,  for  it  was 
upon  such  that  the  greatest  care  and  the  most 
significant  symbolism  had  been  lavished.  For 
example,  the  first  intent  of  building  a  house  for 
God  was  a  form  of  Sacrifice,  and  involved  the 
giving  of  the  best  work  and  the  costliest  mate- 
rials, that  the  sacrifice  might  be  acceptable.  He 
could  show  how  this  had  been  done  by  the  Gothic 
builders  of  ancient  Italy  and  France;  and  he  could 
contrast  the  luxury  of  modern  private  houses  with 
the  shoddy  of  their  sham  Gothic  churches.  Next, 
the  sincerity  of  the  worship  which  sacred  architec- 
ture meant  to  illustrate  was  reflected  in  its  Truth, 
refusing  all  architectural  deceits,  in  structure,  in 
material,  or  in  the  substitution  of  cheap  machine- 
made  ornament  for  the  honest  result  of  truly 
artistic  labor.  The  lamps  of  Power  and  Beauty 
were  the  expressions  of  seriousness,  in  sympathy 
with  human  pain  and  struggle,  and  of  pleasure,  in 
sympathy  with  divine  law  made  visible  in  nature. 
Life  was  the  result  of  spontaneous  and  unaf- 
fected art,  dying  out  at  once  when  the  workman 


THE    SEVEN    LAMPS.  l6l 

became  a  formal  imitator  of  a  soulless  mecha- 
nist. Memory  was  the  documentary  character  of 
ancient  buildings,  destroyed  by  restoration ;  and 
finally  Obedience  was  shown  in  the  refusal  of 
impudent  attempts  at  mere  bizarrerie,  and  novelty 
for  its  own  sake ;  for  a  great  style  could  only  spring 
up  as  the  unconscious  expression  of  national  char- 
acter and  circumstances,  developing  out  of  the 
received  inheritance  of  the  traditional  school. 

This  was  Mr.  Ruskin's  first  illustrated  volume. 
The  plates  were  engraved  by  himself  in  soft- 
ground  etching,  such  as  Prout  had  used,  from 
drawings  he  had  made  in  1846  and  1848.  Some 
are  scrappy  combinations  of  various  detail,  but 
others,  such  as  the  Byzantine  capital,  the  window 
in  Giotto's  Campanile,  the  arches  from  St.  Lo  in 
Normandy,  from  S.  Michele  at  Lucca,  and  from 
the  Ca'  Foscari  at  Venice,  are  effective  studies  of 
the  actual  look  of  old  buildings,  seen  as  they  are 
shown  us  in  Nature,  with  her  light  and  shade 
added  to  all  the  facts  of  form,  and  her  own  last 
touches  in  the  way  of  weather-softening,  and  set- 
tling-faults, and  tufted,  nestling  plants. 

The  book  was  announced  for  his  father's  birth- 
day, May  10,  1849;  but  there  was  still  one  plate 
to  finish,  —  that  of  Giotto's  tower,  —  when  the 
whole  family  went  abroad  again,  the  new  Mrs. 
John  replacing  Cousin  Mary,  who  also  had  been 
married  the  year  before.  Mr.  Ruskin  worked  at 
his  plate  on  the  way  through  France,  and  bit  it 
hastily  in  his  wash-hand-basin  at  the  Hotel  de  la 


1 62       THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

Cloche  at  Dijon  (perhaps  on  April  17th).  These 
sketchy  and  unprofessionally  manipulated  plates 
were  thought  to  be  not  a  success ;  and  in  the 
second  edition  more  elaborate  engravings  were 
given,  with  an  exquisite  frontispiece  by  Armytage 
from  a  new  drawing.  But,  apart  from  their  merely 
fancy  value  as  rarities,  the  autograph  etchings  are 
fine  bold  work,  and  especially  interesting  as  a 
new  departure  in  the  way  of  architectural  illus- 
tration. The  cover  of  the  original  editions,  also, 
was  happier  than  Mr.  Ruskin's  book-covers  have 
usually  been ;  stamped  with  an  arabesque  which 
Mr.  W.  Harry  Rogers  designed  from  the  author's 
sketches  of  the  floor  of  San  Miniato. 

As  to  the  reception  of  the  work,  or  at  any  rate 
the  anticipation  of  it,  Charlotte  Bronte  bears  wit- 
ness in  a  letter  to  the  publishers.  "  I  have  lately 
been  reading  '  Modern  Painters,'  and  have  de- 
rived from  the  work  much  genuine  pleasure,  and, 
I  hope,  some  edification ;  at  any  rate  it  has  made 
me  feel  how  ignorant  I  had  previously  been  on 
the  subject  which  it  treats.  Hitherto  I  have  only 
had  instinct  to  guide  me  in  judging  of  art;  I 
feel  now  as  if  I  had  been  walking  blindfold  — 
this  book  seems  to  give  me  new  eyes.  I  do  wish 
I  had  pictures  within  reach  by  which  to  test  the 
new  sense.  Who  can  read  these  glowing  descrip- 
tions of  Turner's  works  without  longing  to  see 
them  ? 

"  I  like  this  author's  style  much ;  there  is  both 
energy  and  beauty  in  it.     I  like  himself,  too,  be- 


THE    SEVEN    LAMPS.  1 63 

cause  he  is  such  a  hearty  admirer.  He  does  not 
give  half-measure  of  praise  or  veneration.  He 
eulogizes,  he  reverences,  with  his  whole  soul. 
One  can  sympathize  with  that  sort  of  devout, 
serious  admiration,  for  he  is  no  rhapsodist ;  one 
can  respect  it ;  yet,  possibly,  many  people  would 
laugh  at  it. 

"  I  congratulate  you  on  the  approaching  publi- 
cation of  Mr.  Ruskin's  new  work.  If  the  '  Seven 
Lamps  of  Architecture  '  resemble  their  predeces- 
sor, '  Modern  Painters,'  they  will  be  no  lamps  at 
all,  but  a  new  constellation  —  seven  bright  stars, 
for  whose  rising  the  reading  world  ought  to  be 
anxiously  agape." 

The  author's  own  opinion,  thirty  years  later, 
was  that  the  book  had  become  the  most  useless 
he  ever  wrote ;  "  the  buildings  it  describes  with 
so  much  delight  being  now  either  knocked  down, 
or  scraped  and  patched  up  into  smugness  and 
smoothness  more  tragic  than  uttermost  ruin.  But 
I  find  the  public  still  like  the  book,  and  will  read 
it,  when  they  won't  look  at  what  would  be  really 
useful  and  helpful  to  them ;  .  .  .  the  germ  of 
what  I  have  since  written  is  indeed  here,  however 
overlaid  with  gilding,  and '  overshot,  too  splashily 
and  cascade-fashion,  with  gushing  of  words." 


CHAPTER   IV. 

STONES    OF   VENICE. 

(1849-1851-) 

"I  stood  in  Venice,  on  the  Bridge  of  Sighs, 
A  palace  and  a  prison  on  each  hand ; 
I  saw  from  out  the  wave  her  structures  rise 
As  from  the  stroke  of  the  enchanter's  wand." 

Byron. 

"  And  I,  John,  saw  the  holy  city,  New  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from 
God,  out  of  heaven."  —  Rev.  xxi.  2. 

A  book  about  Venice  had  been  planned  in 
1845,  during  Mr.  Ruskin's  first  long  working 
visit.  He  had  made  so  many  notes  and  sketches, 
both  of  architecture  and  of  painting,  that  the  ma- 
terial seemed  ready  to  hand ;  another  visit  would 
fill  up  the  gaps  in  his  information ;  and  two  or 
three  .months'  hard  writing  would  work  the  sub- 
ject off,  and  set  him  free  to  continue  "  Modern 
Painters."  So  before  leaving  home  in  1849,  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  that  the  next  work  would 
be  "  The  Stones  of  Venice ;  "  which,  on  the  ap- 
pearance of  "  The  Seven  Lamps,"  was  announced 
by  the  publishers  as  in  preparation. 

Like  "The  Seven  Lamps,"  this  new  book  was 
not  to  be  a  manual  of  practical  architecture,  but 
the  further  illustration  of  doctrines  peculiar  to  the 


STONES    OF    VENICE.  I 65 

author;  the  reaction,  that  is  to  say,  of  society 
upon  art;  the  close  connection,  in  this  case,  of 
style  in  architecture  with  the  life,  the  religious 
tone,  the  moral  aims,  of  the  people  who  produced 
it.  Venice  was  chosen  as  the  special  ground  of 
inquiry,  not  because  Venetian  architecture  was 
better  than  Florentine  or  French,  but  because  it 
presented  a  conveniently  isolated  school,  neatly 
continuous,  with  none  of  those  breaks  and  catas- 
trophes which  destroy  the  full  value,  as  specimens 
of  development,  of  most  other  schools ;  just  as 
flaws  and  interruptions  destroy  the  museum-value 
of  a  mineral,  as  a  specimen  of  crystallization. 
Venice  was  a  perfectly  normal  development,  unr 
der  favorable  circumstances.  And  there  was  this 
added  interest,  that  the  character  of  Venice  was 
the  nearest  analogy  in  the  past,  and  among  the 
great  influential  nations  of  history,  to  our  own 
country.  It  was  free,  but  aristocratic  and  con- 
servative ;  Christian,  but  independent  of  the 
Pope;  it  pursued  a  course  of  "spirited  foreign 
policy,"  in  contrast  with,  but  as  a  consequence  of, 
its  apparently  peaceful  function  of  commerce. 
So  that,  by  its  example,  the  lessons  of  national 
virtue  which,  since  1845,  the  author  had  felt 
called  on  to  preach,  could  be  illustrated  and 
enforced  in  a  far  more  interesting  way  than  if 
he  had  merely  written  a  volume  of  essays  on 
political  morality ;  at  least,  so  he  felt  and  intended. 
But  in  the  end,  the  inquiry  branched  out  into  so 
many  directions   that  the  main  purpose  was  all 


1 66      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

but  hidden  in  flowers  of  rhetoric  and  foliage  of 
technical  detail,  which  most  readers  took  for  the 
sum  and  substance  of  its  teaching. 

In  the  summer  of  1849  Mr.  Ruskin  was  with 
his  family  and  friends  in  Switzerland  from  the  be- 
ginning of  May  until  the  end  of  October.  He 
spent  a  busy  and  eventful  time,  —  whether  well  or 
ill,  happy  or  distressed,  he  was  always  busy ;  some 
of  his  most  careful  drawings  of  the  Alps  were 
made  this  year,  and  their  accuracy  was  checked 
by  the  daguerreotype  camera  which  he  carried 
about  with  him.  I  do  not  know  if  he  can  claim 
to  be  the  actual  pioneer  of  Alpine  photography, 
but  he  was  the  first  to  photograph  the  Matter- 
horn, —  I  believe,  early  in  August,  1849. 

Part  of  November  was  spent  at  Verona,  and  by 
the  end  of  the  month  he  was  settled  with  his  wife 
at  Venice  for  the  winter.  He  expected  to  find 
without  much  trouble  all  the  information  he 
wanted  as  to  the  dates  and  styles  and  history  of 
Venetian  buildings ;  but  after  consulting  and  com- 
paring all  the  native  writers,  it  appeared  that  the 
questions  he  asked  of  them  were  just  the  ques- 
tions they  were  unprepared  to  answer,  and  that  he 
must  go  into  the  whole  matter  afresh.  So  he  laid 
himself  out,  that  winter,  for  a  thorough  examina- 
tion of  St.  Mark's  and  the  Ducal  Palace  and  the 
other  remains  —  drawing,  and  measuring,  and 
comparing  their  details ;  only  to  find  that  the 
work  he  had  undertaken  was  like  a  sea  "  chi  sem- 
pre  si  fa  maggiore."     The  old  buildings  were  a 


STONES    OF   VENICE.  1 67 

patchwork  of  all  styles  and  all  periods.  In  St. 
Mark's  alone,  every  pinnacle  called  for  separate 
study ;  every  capital  and  balustrade,  on  minute  in- 
quiry, turned  out  to  have  its  own  independent 
history.  So  that  after  all  his  labor  he  could  give 
no  complete  and  generalized  survey  of  his  subject, 
chronological  and  systematized,  without  much 
more  time  and  thought.  But  at  any  rate  the  de- 
tails he  had  in  his  notebooks  were  the  result  of 
personal  observation ;  he  was  no  longer  trusting 
to  second-hand  information  or  the  vague  traditions 
of  the  tribe  of  ciceroni. 

His  father  had  gone  back  to  England  in  Sep- 
tember, out  of  health  ;  and  the  letters  from  home 
did  not  report  improvement.  His  mother,  too, 
was  beginning  to  fear  the  loss  of  her  sight ;  and 
he  could  not  stay  away  from  them  any  longer,  to 
pursue  what  he  thought  to  be  his  own  selfish  aims. 
And  so,  in  February,  1850,  he  broke  off  his  work 
in  the  middle  of  it,  and  returned  to  London.  The 
rest  of  the  year  he  spent  in  writing  the  first  vol- 
ume of  "  Stones  of  Venice,"  and  in  preparing  the 
illustrations,  and  the  "  Examples  of  the  Architec- 
ture of  Venice,"  a  portfolio  of  large  lithographs  and 
engravings  in  mezzotint  and  line,  to  accompany 
the  work. 

The  illustrations  to  the  new  book  were  a  great 
advance  upon  the  rough  soft-ground  etchings  of 
"  The  Seven  Lamps."  He  secured  the  services  of 
some  of  the  finest  engravers  who  ever  handled  the 
tools  of  their  art.     The  English  school  of  engrav- 


1 68      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

ers  was  then  in  its  last  and  most  accomplished 
period.  Photography  had  not  yet  begun  to  super- 
sede it;  and  the  demand  for  delicate  work  in 
book-illustration  had  encouraged  minuteness  and 
precision  of  handling  to  the  last  degree.  In  this 
excessive  refinement  there  were  the  symptoms  of 
decline  ;  but  it  was  most  fortunate  for  Mr.  Ruskin 
that  his  drawings  could  be  interpreted  by  such 
men  as  Armytage  and  Cousen,  Cuff  and  Le  Keux, 
Boys  and  Lupton,  and  not  without  advantage  to 
them  that  their  masterpieces  should  be  preserved 
in  his  works,  and  praised  as  they  deserved  in  his 
prefaces.  Sometimes,  as  it  often  happens  when 
engravers  work  for  an  artist  who  sets  the  standard 
high,  they  found  Mr.  Ruskin  a  hard  taskmaster. 
The  mere  fact  of  their  skill  in  translating  a  sketch 
from  a  notebook  into  a  gem-like  vignette  en- 
couraged him  to  ask  for  more ;  so  that  some  of  the 
subjects  which  became  the  most  elaborate  were 
at  first  comparatively  rough  drawings,  and  were 
gradually  worked  up  from  successive  retouchings 
of  the  proofs,  by  the  infinite  patience  of  both  par- 
ties. In  other  cases,  working  drawings  were  pre- 
pared by  Mr.  Ruskin,  as  refined  as  the  plates. 
How  steady  his  hand  was,  and  how  trained  his 
eye,  can  be  seen  by  any  one  who  looks  carefully 
at  the  etchings  by  him  —  not  after  him  —  in 
"  Modern  Painters ; "  which  show  that  he  was 
fully  competent  to  have  produced  his  own  illus- 
trations, had  it  been  worth  his  while  ;  and  any  one 
who  has  turned  over  a  portfolio  of  his  best  draw- 


STONES    OF   VENICE.  1 69 

ings  will  bear  witness  that,  while  in  one  mood  he 
does  those  roughly-handled  chiaroscuro  studies 
like  the  "  Seven  Lamps "  illustrations,  at  other 
times  he  can  "  curb  the  liberal  hand "  and  rival  a 
cameo  in  refinement.  His  limitation  as  an  artist 
was  owing  to  no  want  of  executive  skill.  His 
own  apology  is  that  "  he  has  no  imagination,"  and 
fails  in  composition,  especially  in  the  arrangement 
of  color.  With  which  explanation  one  is  puzzled, 
seeing  how  many  are  in  the  same  case ;  but  no 
doubt  he  has  not  been  ambitious  to  be  of  their 
number. 

He  could  have  been  a  painter  if  he  had  devoted 
himself  to  painting  —  not  a  Turner  or  a  Titian, 
but  a  sound  practitioner,  much  above  the  average. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  his  verse-writing.  In 
this  year,  1850,  his  father  collected  and  printed  his 
poems,  with  a  number  of  pieces  that  still  remained 
in  MS.;  the  author  taking  no  part  in  this  revival 
of  bygones,  which  for  many  reasons,  then,  he  was 
not  anxious  to  recall,  —  though  his  father  still  be- 
lieved that  he  might  have  been  a  poet,  and  ought 
to  have  been  one.  He,  however,  knew  that  he  had 
found  his  vocation. 

Another  resurrection  was  "  The  King  of  the 
Golden  River,"  which  had  lain  hidden  for  the  nine 
years  of  the  Ars  Poetica.  He  allowed  it  to  be 
published,  with  woodcuts  by  the  famous  "  Dicky  " 
Doyle.  I  say  "  allowed  it  to  be  published,"  not 
that  there  was  any  reason  for  suppressing  the  work 
on  the  score  of  triviality  or  juvenility.     Mr.  Rus- 


I70      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

kin  has  repeatedly  said  that  he  has  no  desire  to 
suppress  anything  he  has  written,  and  proved  it 
by  sanctioning  the  collection  of  his  letters  to  news- 
papers, and  to  private  friends,  without,  as  some 
might  think,  enough  regard  to  consequences.  In 
this  case  the  venture  was  a  success ;  the  little 
book  ran  through  three  editions  that  year,  and, 
partly  because  school  boards  have  adopted  it  as 
one  of  their  prizes,  it  still  finds  a  steady  sale.  The 
first  issue  must  have  been  torn  to  rags  in  the 
nurseries  of  the  last  generation,  since  copies  are 
so  rare  as  to  bring  ten  guineas  apiece,  instead  of 
the  six  shillings  at  which  they  were  advertised  in 
1850. 

Living  in  London  this  year,  and  already  one  of 
the  most  important  literary  celebrities,  Mr.  Rus- 
kin  could  not  avoid  entertaining  society  and  being 
entertained,  even  on  the  plea  of  book-writing.  He 
mixed  with  an  artistic  circle,  on  good  terms  with 
men  both  in  and  out  of  the  Academy ;  a  literary 
circle  of  the  old-fashioned  gentleman-author  type, 
such  as  rallied  round  the  veteran  Rogers ;  and  in 
the  third  place  a  religious  circle,  or  rather  circles 
of  various  opinions  in  religion,  from  the  more 
pronounced  Evangelicals  like  Spurgeon  to  the 
most  evasive  of  the  early  Broad  Churchmen. 
Puseyites  and  Roman  Catholics  were  still  as 
heathen  men  and  publicans  to  him  ;  and  he  noted 
with  interest,  while  writing  his  review  of  Venetian 
history,  that  the  strength  of  Venice  was  distinctly 
anti  -  papal,   and   her   virtues    Catholic    but    not 


STONES    OF    VENICE.  171 

Roman.  Reflections  on  this  subject  were  to  have 
formed  part  of  his  great  work,  but  the  first  volume 
was  taken  up  with  the  a  priori  development  of 
architectural  forms ;  and  the  treatment  in  especial 
of  Venetian  matters  had  to  be  indefinitely  post- 
poned, until  another  visit  should  complete  his 
material.  Meanwhile  he  noticed  with  growing  un- 
easiness —  as  many  others  did  —  the  divided  aims 
of  professing  Christians.  Even  in  the  Church  of 
England,  not  to  speak  of  the  innumerable  phases 
of  dissenting  Protestants,  there  were  at  least  three 
opposing  classes,  pulling  different  ways  and  set- 
ting up  different  standards  of  theological  and 
ecclesiastical  thought.  And  all  the  while,  the 
energy  that  might  have  made  head  against  popery 
and  infidelity,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  and  to  many, 
was  being  spent  in  discussing  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  or  the  history  of  the  Reformation,  or  the 
Early  Fathers,  with  every  prospect  of  disastrous 
and  irremediable  schism. 

His  study  of  Venice  had  shown  him  the  polit- 
ical importance  of  an  acknowledged  religion ;  and 
the  possibility  of  such  a  religion  maintaining  its 
influence  for  good,  while  still  wedded  to  the  state, 
and  in  external  things  remaining  under  state 
direction.  He  saw  that  the  church,  as  it  was  re- 
garded by  the  apostles,  was  simply  the  assembly 
of  professing  Christians,  the  flock  of  Christ,  for 
whom  there  was  but  one  fold,  with  room  for  all. 
And  he  believed  that  if  these  discussions  about 
church   history  and   post-apostolic    opinion  were 


172       THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

dropped,  and  if  people  would  go  candidly  to  the 
New  Testament  for  its  simple  teaching,  there 
ought  to  be  no  difficulty  in  finding  a  common 
ground  upon  which  all  could  meet.  If  that  were 
possible,  then  all  that  his  writings  had  been  plead- 
ing for,  the  habitual  sincerity  of  thought  and  the 
standard  simplicity  of  life,  which  would  produce, 
among  other  things,  a  revival  of  the  right  spirit  of 
art,  —  all  this  would  be  greatly  helped  and  for- 
warded. He  could  think  so,  and  say  so,  without 
apology;  for  in  those  days  religion  was  still 
treated  with  some  show  of  respect,  and  agnostic 
morality  had  scarcely  been  formulated. 

Accordingly  he  put  together  his  thoughts  in  a 
pamphlet  on  the  text  "  There  shall  be  one  fold 
and  one  shepherd,"  calling  it,  in  allusion  to  his 
architectural  studies,  "  Notes  on  the  Construction 
of  Sheepfolds."  He  proposed  a  compromise  ;  try- 
ing to  prove  that  the  pretensions  to  priesthood 
on  the  high  Anglican  side,  and  the  objections  to 
episcopacy  on  the  Presbyterian,  were  alike  unten- 
able; and  hoped  that,  when  once  these  differ- 
ences —  such  little  things,  he  thought  them  — 
were  arranged,  a  united  Church  of  England  might 
become  the  nucleus  of  a  world-wide  federation  of 
Protestants,  a  civitas  Dei,  a  New  Jerusalem. 

There  were  many  who  agreed  with  his  aspira- 
tions ;  he  received  shoals  of  letters  from  sympa- 
thizing readers,  most  of  them  praising  his  aims  and 
criticising  his  means.  For  it  was  just  these  little 
differences  that  stood  in  the  avay  of  what  all  at 


STONES    OF   VENICE.  1 73 

every  time  have  professed  to  desire.  Others  ob- 
jected, rather  to  his  manner  than  to  his  matter : 
the  title  savored  of  levity,  and  an  art  critic  was 
supposed  to  be  wandering  out  of  his  province,  — 
it  was  the  ne  sutor  upside  down.  Tradition  says 
that  the  "  Notes  "  were  freely  bought  by  Border 
farmers  under  a  rather  laughable  mistake ;  but 
surely  it  was  no  new  thing  for  a  Scotch  reader  to 
find  a  religious  tract  under  a  catching  title  ;  and 
their  two  shillings  might  have  been  worse  spent. 
There  were  a  few  replies ;  one  by  Mr.  Dyce,  the 
clerical  R.  A.,  who  defended  the  Anglican  view 
with  mild  persiflage  and  the  usual  commonplaces. 
And  there  the  matter  ended,  for  the  public.  For 
Mr.  Ruskin,  it  was  the  beginning  of  a  train  of 
thought  which  led  him  far.  He  gradually  learned 
that  his  error  was  not  in  asking  too  much,  but 
in  asking  too  little.  He  wished  for  a  union  of 
Protestants,  forgetting  the  sheep  that  are  not  of 
that  fold,  and  little  dreaming  of  the  answer  he 
got,  after  many  days,  in  "Christ's  Folk  in  the 
Apennine." 

Meanwhile  the  first  volume  of  "  Stones  of 
Venice "  had  appeared.  Its  reception  was  in- 
directly described  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  "  Some- 
thing on  Ruskinism,  with  a  '  Vestibule '  in 
Rhyme,  by  an  Architect,"  a  Puginist,  it  seems, 
who  felt  that  his  craft  was  in  danger.  He  com- 
plains bitterly  of  the  "  ecstasies  of  rapture  "  into 
which  the  newspapers  had  been  thrown  by  the 
new  work :  — 


174       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

"  Your  book  —  since  Reviewers  so  swear  —  may  be  rational, 
Still,  't  is  certainly  not  either  loyal  or  national;  " 

for  it  did  not  join  in  the  chorus  of  congratulation 
to  Prince  Albert  and  the  British  public  on  the 
Great  Exhibition  of  1851,  the  apotheosis  of  trade 
and  machinery.  The  Architect  finds  also  — 
what  may  surprise  the  modern  reader  who  has 
not  noticed  that  many  an  able  writer  has  been 
thought  unreadable  on  his  first  appearance  —  that 
he  cannot  understand  Mr.  Ruskin's  language 
and  ideas : — 

"  Your  style  is  so  soaring  —  and  some  it  makes  sore  — 
That  plain  folks  can't  make  out  your  strange  mystical  lore." 

He  will  allow  the  author  to  be  quite  right,  when 
he  finds  something  to  agree  with ;  but  the  mo- 
ment a  sore  point  is  touched,  then  Ruskin  is  "  in- 
sane." In  one  respect  the  Architect  hit  the  nail 
on  the  head :  "  Readers  who  are  not  reviewers 
by  profession  can  hardly  fail  to  perceive  that 
Ruskinism  is  violently  inimical  to  sundry  existing 
interests?  A  more  comprehensive  answer  to  Mr. 
Ruskin's  critics  was  never  given.  Before  leaving 
the  Architect  one  may  notice  that  his  attack  was 
printed  at  Bell  Yard,  Temple  Bar,  where  forty 
years  afterwards  the  "  Stones  of  Venice  "  is  reis- 
sued, while  the  angry  outcries  it  evoked  are  for- 
gotten by  all  but  the  laborious  biographer. 

The  best  men,  we  said,  were  the  first  to  recog- 
nize Mr.  Ruskin's  genius.  Let  us  throw  into  the 
opposite  scale  an  opinion  of  more  weight  than  the 


STONES    OF   VENICE.  1 75 

Architect's,  in  a  transcript  from  the  original  letter 
from  Carlyle. 

Chelsea,  9  March,  1851. 

Dear  Ruskin,  — I  did  not  know  yesterday  till  your  ser- 
vant was  gone  that  there  was  any  note  in  the  parcel ;  nor  at 
all  what  a  feat  you  had  done  !  A  loan  of  the  gallant  young 
man's  Memoirs  was  what  I  expected  ;  and  here,  in  the  most 
chivalrous  style,  comes  a  gift  of  them.  This,  I  think,  must 
be  in  the  style  prior  to  the  Renaissance  !  What  can  I  do  but 
accept  your  kindness  with  pleasure  and  gratitude,  though  it 
is  far  beyond  my  deserts  ?  Perhaps  the  next  man  I  meet  will 
use  me  as  much  below  them  ;  and  so  bring  matters  straight 
again  !  Truly  I  am  much  obliged,  and  return  you  many 
hearty  thanks. 

I  was  already  deep  in  the  "  Stones ;  "  and  clearly  purpose 
to  hold  on  there.  A  strange,  unexpected,  and,  I  believe, 
most  true  and  excellent  Sermon  in  Stones  —  as  well  as  the 
best  piece  of  School-mastering  in  Architectonics ;  from  which 
I  hope  to  learn  in  a  great  many  ways.  The  spirit  and  purport 
of  these  Critical  Studies  of  yours  are  a  singular  sign  of  the 
times  to  me,  and  a  very  gratifying  one.  Right  good  speed  to 
you,  and  victorious  arrival  on  the  farther  shore  !  It  is  a  quite 
new  "  renaissance,"  I  believe,  we  are  getting  into  just  now : 
either  towards  new,  wider  manhood,  high  again  as  the  eternal 
stars;  or  else  into  final  death,  and  the  mask  of  Gehenna  for 
evermore !  A  dreadful  process,  but  a  needful  and  inevitable 
one ;  nor  do  I  doubt  at  all  which  way  the  issue  will  be, 
though  which  of  the  extant  nations  are  to  get  included  in  it, 
and  which  to  be  trampled  out  and  abolished  in  the  process, 
may  be  very  doubtful.  God  is  great :  —  and  sure  enough, 
the  changes  in  the  Construction  of  Sheep/olds,  as  well  as  in 
other  things,  will  require  to  be  very  considerable. 

We  are  still  laboring  under  the  foul  kind  of  influenza 
here,  I  not  far  from  emancipated,  my  poor  wife  still  deep  in 
the  business,  though  I  hope  past  the  deepest.  Am  I  to  under- 
stand that  you,  too,  are  seized  ?     In  a  day  or  two  I  hope  to 


176      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

ascertain  that  you  are  well  again.     Adieu  :  here  is  an  inter- 
ruption, here  also  is  the  end  of  the  paper. 

With  many  thanks  and  regards, 

[Signature  cut  away.] 

Another  reader,  who  was  not  a  reviewer  by  pro- 
fession, took  a  different  view.  Charlotte  Bronte 
wrote  to  one  of  her  friends :  "  The  '  Stones  of 
Venice '  seem  nobly  laid  and  chiseled.  How 
grandly  the  quarry x  of  vast  marbles  is  disclosed  ! 
Mr.  Ruskin  seems  to  me  one  of  the  few  genuine 
writers,  as  distinguished  from  book-makers,  of  this 
age.  His  earnestness  even  amuses  me  in  certain 
passages,  for  I  cannot  help  laughing  to  think  how 
utilitarians  will  fume  and  fret  over  his  deep,  seri- 
ous, and  (as  they  will  think)  fanatical  reverence 
for  art." 

But  I  do  not  share  Charlotte  Bronte's  view  al- 
together, nor  her  contempt  for  the  utilitarians. 
A  short  while  ago,  one  of  her  own  people,  a  York- 
shire workingman  not  far  from  Haworth,  got  up 
in  a  public  discussion,  and  said  that  he  had  once 
talked  with  Mr.  Ruskin  and  tried  to  say  how  much 
he  had  enjoyed  his  works.  "  And  he  said  to  me, 
'  I  don't  care  whether  you  enjoyed  them :  did  they 
do  you  any  good  ? '  " 

They  have  at  any  rate  done  us  the  good,  little 
valued  by  Mr.  Ruskin,  but  greatly  by  many  a 
dweller  in  modern  towns,  of  reforming  our  street- 
architecture.  And  a  greater  outcome  of  this  work 
the  next  chapter  must  unfold. 

1  An  allusion  to  the  title  of  the  first  chapter  of  the  first  volume. 


STONES    OF    VENICE.  I  77 

As  soon  as  the  first  volume  of  "  Stones  of 
Venice  "  and  the  "  Notes  on  the  Construction  of 
Sheepfolds  "  were  published,  Mr.  Ruskin  took  a 
short  Easter  holiday  at  Matlock,  and  set  to  work 
at  a  new  edition  of  "  Modern  Painters."  This  was 
the  fifth  reprint  of  the  first  volume,  and  the  third 
of  Volume  II.  They  were  carefully  and  consci- 
entiously revised ;  some  passages  of  rough  youth- 
ful criticism  were  canceled,  and  wisely ;  for  more 
lasting  good  is  done  by  expounding  what  is  noble 
than  by  satirizing  what  is  base.  The  work  was 
left  in  its  final  form,  except  for  notes  added  in 
later  years ;  and  the  Postscript  indulges,  most  jus- 
tifiably, in  a  little  triumph  at  the  changed  tone  of 
public  criticism  upon  Turner. 

But  it  was  too  late  to  be  of  any  service  to  the 
great  artist  himself.  In  1845  —  after  saying  good- 
by  and  "  Why  will  you  go  to  Switzerland  ?  There 
will  be  such  2,fidge  about  you  when  you  're  gone  " 
—  Turner  was  attacked,  no  one  knows  how,  with 
some  paralysis  or  mental  decay,  and  was  never 
himself  again.  The  last  drawings  he  did  for  Mr. 
Ruskin  (January,  1848),  the  Briinig  and  the  De- 
scent from  the  St.  Gothard  to  Airolo,  showed  his 
condition  unmistakably ;  and  the  lonely  restless- 
ness of  the  last,  disappointing  years  were,  for  all 
his  friends,  a  melancholy  ending  to  a  brilliant 
career. 

"This  year  (185 1)  he  has  no  picture  on  the 
walls  of  the  Academy  ;  and  the  '  Times '  of  May 
3d  says,  '  We  miss  those  works  of  inspiration  ! ' 


178      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

"  We  miss !  Who  misses  ?  The  populace  of 
England  rolls  by  to  weary  itself  in  the  great 
bazaar  of  Kensington,  little  thinking  that  a  day 
will  come  when  those  veiled  vestals  and  prancing 
amazons,  and  goodly  merchandise  of  precious 
stones  and  gold,  will  all  be  forgotten  as  though 
they  had  not  been ;  but  that  the  light  which  has 
faded  from  the  walls  of  the  Academy  is  one 
which  a  million  Koh-i-noors  could  not  rekindle ; 
and  that  the  year  1851  will,  in  the  far  future,  be 
remembered  less  for  what  it  has  displayed,  than 
for  what  it  has  withdrawn." 

Too  truly  prophesied ;  for  Turner  was  in  his 
last  illness,  hiding  like  a  wild  animal,  wounded  to 
death.  On  December  19th,  in  the  evening,  the 
sunset  shone  upon  his  dishonored  corpse  through 
the  chamber  window  in  Chelsea.  Just  so  it  shone 
upon  another  deathbed,  for  the  sainted  maid  of 
Florence  prefiguring,  they  said,  the  aureole. 

"  The  Sun  is  God,  my  dear,"  Turner  had  told 
his  housekeeper.  Was  there  no  "  healing  in  his 
wings  "  for  the  fallen  hero  ?  or  was  that  reserved 
only  for  the  spotless  soul  of  Ida  ?  Were  there 
still  other  sheep  ?  stones  which  the  builders  of 
sheepfolds  rejected,  —  all  manner  of  precious 
stones  ? 


CHAPTER  V. 

PRE-RAPHAELITISM. 
(1851-1853.) 

"  Don't  go  yet !  Are  you  aware  that  there  will  be  a  torch-race  this 
evening  on  horseback,  to  the  glory  of  Artemis  ? 

"  That  is  entirely  new  to  me,  said  Socrates.  And  do  you  mean  that 
they  will  really  have  torches,  and  pass  them  from  rider  to  rider  in  the 
race  ?  "  —  Plato,  Republic,  328. 

The  Academy  critic  of  the  "  Times,"  in  May, 
185 1,  who  missed  "  those  works  of  inspiration,"  as 
Ruskin  had  at  last  taught  him  to  call  Turner's 
pictures,  —  the  acknowledged  mouthpiece  of  pub- 
lic opinion  found  consolation  in  castigating  a 
school  of  young  artists  who  had  "  unfortunately 
become  notorious  by  addicting  themselves  to  an 
antiquated  style  and  an  affected  simplicity  in 
painting.  .  .  .  We  can  extend  no  toleration  to  a 
mere  servile  imitation  of  the  cramped  style,  false 
perspective,  and  crude  color  of  remote  antiquity. 
We  want  not  to  see  what  Fuseli  termed  drapery 
'  snapped  instead  of  folded ; '  faces  bloated  into 
apoplexy,  or  extenuated  into  skeletons ;  color  bor- 
rowed from  the  jars  in  a  druggist's  shop,  and  ex- 
pression forced  into  caricature.  .  .  .  That  morbid 
infatuation  which  sacrifices  truth,  beauty,  and 
genuine  feeling  to  mere  eccentricity,  deserves  no 
quarter  at  the  hand  of  the  public." 


l8o      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

"  Certainly,  without  doubt,"  said  Henny-penny, 
Cocky-locky,  and  the  whole  farm-yard.  And  ob- 
serve how  cleverly  the  vox  populi  had  learned 
to  quack  in  the  cadences  of  "  Modern  Painters," 
Vol.  II.,  and  "The  Seven  Lamps:"  "We  want 
not  to  see,"  and  so  forth,  quoth  he ;  and  re-reading 
his  proof,  beheld,  if  I  mistake  not,  by  the  eye  of 
contemplative  imagination,  —  or  was  it  associa- 
tive ?  these  distinctions  being  somewhat  difficult, 

—  beheld  Mr.  Ruskin's  graceful  wave  of  the  hand 

—  "  Thank  you,  my  dear  sir,  for  your  noble  "... 
Mr.  Ruskin  read  his  "  Times  "  that  May  morn- 
ing at  Park  Street ;  smiled  at  "  his  own  thun- 
der" in  the  Thunderer's  hands  ;  remembered  that 
last  year  he  had  not  quite  approved  of  the  ob- 
viously popish  tendency,  as  he  took  it,  of  a  picture 
called  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini,  by  an  Italian  of 
the  name  of  Rossetti ;  nor  of  the  Holy  Family 
in  the  Carpenter's  Shop,  by  a  Frenchman  (?) 
called  Millais  ;  nor  of  the  thin  end  of  the  Puseyite 
wedge  in  the  Early  Christian  Missionary,  signed 
W.  H.  Hunt,  —  no  relative  of  his  old  friend  of  the 
Water  Color  Society.  The  year  before  he  had 
been  abroad ;  all  these  months  he  had  been  closely 
kept  to  his  "  Sheepfolds  "  and  "  Stones  of  Venice ; " 
and  now  he  was  correcting  the  proofs  of  "  Modern 
Painters,"  Vol.  I.,  as  thus :  — 

"Chapter  the  last:  section  21.  The  duty  and 
after  privileges  of  all  students.  .  .  .  Goto  Nature 
in  all  singleness  of  heart,  and  walk  with  her  labo- 
riously and  trustingly,  having  no  other  thoughts 


PRE-RAPHAELITISM.  l8l 

but  how  best  to  penetrate  her  meaning  and  re- 
member her  instruction  ;  rejecting  nothing,  select- 
ing nothing,  and  scorning  nothing ;  believing  all 
things  to  be  right  and  good,  and  rejoicing  always 
in  the  truth." 

He  went  round  to  the  Academy  to  look  at  the 
false  perspective,  and  snapped  draperies,  and  in- 
fatuated untruth,  and  eccentric  ugliness.  Yes; 
the  faces  were  ugly:  Millais'  Mariana  was  a 
piece  of  idolatrous  papistry,  and  there  was  a 
mistake  in  the  perspective.  Collins's  Convent 
Thoughts  —  more  popery ;  but  very  careful,  — 
the  tadpole  "  too  small  for  its  age ;  "  but  what 
studies  of  plants!  And  there  was  his  own 
Alisma  Plantago,  which  he  had  been  drawing 
for  "  Stones  of  Venice  "  (vol.  i.,  plate  7)  and  de- 
scribing :  "  The  lines  through  its  body,  which  are 
of  peculiar  beauty,  mark  the  different  expansions 
of  its  fibres,  and  are,  I  think,  exactly  the  same  as 
those  which  would  be  traced  by  the  currents  of  a 
river  entering  a  lake  of  the  shape  of  the  leaf,  at 
the  end  where  the  stalk  is,  and  passing  out  at  its 
point."  Curvature  was  one  of  the  special  subjects 
of  Mr.  Ruskin,  the  one  he  found  most  neglected 
by  ordinary  artists.  The  Alisma  was  a  test  of 
observation  and  draughtsmanship.  He  had  never 
seen  it  so  thoroughly  or  so  well  drawn,  and  heart- 
ily wished  the  study  were  his. 

Looking  again  at  the  other  works  of  the  school, 
he  found  that  the  one  mistake  in  the  Mariana 
was  the  only  error  in  perspective  in   the  whole 


1 82       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

series  of  pictures,  —  which  could  not  be  said  of  any 
twelve  works,  containing  architecture,  by  popular 
artists  in  the  exhibition,  —  and  that,  as  studies  both 
of  drapery  and  of  every  other  minor  detail,  there 
had  been  nothing  in  art  so  earnest  or  so  complete 
as  these  pictures  since  the  days  of  Albert  Durer. 

He  went  home,  and  wrote  his  verdict  in  a  let- 
ter to  the  "  Times,"  and  after  farther  examination 
of  Hunt's  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  and  Mil- 
lais'  Return  of  the  Dove,  wrote  again,  pointing 
out  beauties,  and  indications  of  power  in  con- 
ception, and  observation  of  nature,  and  handling, 
where  at  first  he,  like  the  rest  of  the  public,  had 
been  repelled  by  the  willful  ugliness  of  the  faces. 
Meanwhile  the  Pre-Raphaelites  wrote  to  tell  him 
that  they  were  neither  papists  nor  Puseyites.  The 
day  after  his  second  letter  was  published  he  re- 
ceived an  ill-spelled  missive,  anonymously  abusing 
them.  This  was  the  sort  of  thing  to  interest  his 
love  of  poetical  justice.  He  made  the  acquaintance 
of  several  of  the  Brethren.  "  Charley  "  Collins,  as 
his  friends  affectionately  called  him,  was  the  son 
of  a  respected  R.  A.,  and  the  brother  of  Wilkie 
Collins ;  himself  afterwards  the  author  of  a  de- 
lightful book  of  travel  in  France,  "  A  Cruise  upon 
Wheels."  Mr.  Millais  turned  out  to  be  the  most 
gifted,  charming,  and  handsome  of  young  artists. 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt  was  already  a  Ruskin-reader, 
serious  and  earnest  in  his  religious  nature,  as  in 
his  painting. 

The  Pre-Raphaelites  were  not,  originally,  Mr. 


PRE-RAPHAELITISM.  1 83 

Ruskin's  pupils,  nor  was  their  movement,  directly, 
of  his  creation.  But  it  was  the  outcome  of  a  gen- 
eral tendency  which  he,  more  than  any  man,  had 
helped  to  start ;  and  it  was  the  fulfillment,  though 
in  a  way  he  had  not  intended,  of  his  wishes.  His 
advice  to  go  to  nature,  selecting  nothing,  rejecting 
nothing,  and  scorning  nothing,  had  been  offered 
to  landscape  students,  and  it  had  involved  the 
acceptance  of  Turner  as  their  great  exemplar  and 
ultimate  standard.  It  was  beginning  to  be  ac- 
cepted by  many,  but  with  timidity  and  modifica- 
tions ;  and,  to  indulge  for  a  moment  in  the 
"might  have  been,"  if  the  Pre-Raphaelite  revo- 
lution had  not  happened,  a  school  of  modern 
landscape,  naturalistic  on  the  one  hand,  idealistic 
and  poetical  on  the  other,  would  probably  have 
developed  constitutionally,  so  to  speak,  with  Mr. 
Ruskin  as  its  prophet,  and  Turner  as  its  forerun- 
ner,—  a  school  which  would  have  been  as  truly 
national  as  the  great  school  of  portraiture  had 
been,  and  as  representative,  in  one  direction,  of  the 
spirit  of  the  age  as  the  sixteenth-century  Vene- 
tians. 

But  history  does  not  behave  so  reasonably. 
There  are  more  wheels  in  the  machine  than  we 
can  count,  "  cycle  on  epicycle,"  not  to  hint  at 
cometary  orbits  unknown  to  the  almanac.  The 
naturalistic  movement,  which  had  engaged  Mr. 
Ruskin's  whole  attention  at  his  start,  was  only 
one  side  of  the  nation's  life.  The  other  side  was 
reactionary,  leading  to  Tractarianism  in*  some,  in 


184      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

others  to  historical  research,  to  Gothic  revivals 
in  architecture  and  painting  and  poetry;  in  all 
cases  betraying  itself  in  the  harking  back  to  by- 
gones, rather  than  in  progressist  modernism.  The 
lower  class  of  minds  took  one  side  or  the  other, 
and  became  merely  radical  or  materialist,  and 
Puseyite  or  romantic,  as  their  sympathies  led 
them.  But  the  problem,  to  a  thinker,  was  to 
mediate  between  these  opposing  tendencies ;  to 
find  the  higher  term  that  embraced  them  both; 
to  unite  the  two  aims  without  compromise.  And 
in  proportion  as  a  man  was  great,  he  found  the 
problem,  with  widening  issues,  there  for  him  to 
attempt. 

So  Mr.  Ruskin,  who  began  as  a  naturalist,  was 
met  first  by  ancient  Christian  art,  and  spent  his 
early  manhood  in  dissolving  the  antithesis  be- 
tween modern  English  landscape  study  and  the 
standpoint  of  Angelico.  No  sooner  had  he  suc- 
ceeded than  a  new  element  appeared,  —  an  ele- 
ment of  life,  as  he  perceived,  and  therefore  neces- 
sary to  accept,  but  at  first  sight  irreconcilable  with 
his  arrangement  of  the  world.  So  he  brought  it 
into  his  scheme,  bit  by  bit:  first  the  naturalism 
of  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  which  he  tried  to  consider 
the  essence  of  the  movement. 

But  they,  too,  were  attempting  the  great  prob- 
lem, from  their  own  side,  like  rival  Matterhorn 
pioneers :  and  they  shouted  to  him,  as  it  were,  to 
leave  the  arete  he  was  following,  and  its  ups  and 
downs  and  dizzy  descent  on  either  hand,  and  to 


PRE-RAPHAELITISM.  1 85 

join  them  in  their  couloir.  There  the  little  band 
toiled  together,  until  some  gave  up  the  enterprise  • 
some  were  struck  down  by  the  stones  that  always 
make  a  couloir  unsafe ;  some  never  struggled  out 
of  the  narrow  chimney.  He  regained  his  arete, 
stronger  when  free  from  the  rope,  and  safer  on  the 
dangerous  edge. 

His  conversion  to  Pre-Raphaelitism  was  none 
the  less  sincere  because  it  was  sudden,  and 
brought  about  partly  by  the  personal  influence  of 
his  new  allies.  And  in  rearranging  his  art  theory 
to  take  them  in,  he  had  before  his  mind  rather 
what  he  hoped  they  would  become,  than  what 
they  were.  For  a  time,  his  influence  over  them 
was  great ;  their  first  three  years  were  their  own ; 
their  next  three  years  were  practically  his;  and 
some  of  them,  the  weaker  brethren,  leaned  upon 
him  until  they  lost  command  of  their  own  powers. 
No  artist  can  afford  to  use  another  man's  eyes ; 
still  less,  another  man's  brain  and  heart.  Mr. 
Ruskin,  great  as  an  exponent,  was  in  no  sense  a 
master  of  artists.  His  business  was  to  set  up 
the  target,  and  register  the  shot :  not  to  sight  and 
aim  the  guns.  And  if  he  cheered  on  the  men 
who,  he  believed,  were  the  best  of  the  time,  it  did 
not  follow  that  he  should  be  saddled  with  the 
responsibility  of  directing  them.  In  so  far  as  he 
meddled  with  it,  he  brought  about  their  defeat. 
I  do  not  think  he  would  have  been  defeated  as 
leader  of  a  party  which  was  truly  his  own.  The 
Pre-Raphaelites  were  not  his  men ;   he  was  not 


1 86      THE   LIFE   AND   WORK   OF   JOHN   RUSKIN. 

their  natural  leader.  He  was  like  some  good 
knight  generously  heading  an  insurrection,  for 
the  sake  of  fair  play.  The  worse  for  him,  which- 
ever side  won  ;  and  his  allies  would  have  been 
wiser  to  trust  to  bills  and  bows. 

The  famous  pamphlet  on  Pre-Raphaelitism  of 
August,  185 1,  was  the  apology  for  his  conver- 
sion, and  a  first  attempt  to  reconcile  his  old  prin- 
ciples with  his  new  professions.  He  showed  that 
the  same  motives  of  sincerity  impelled  both  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brethren  and  Turner,  and,  in  a 
degree,  men  so  different  as  Prout,  old  Hunt,  and 
Lewis.  All  these  were  opposed  to  the  Academi- 
cal School  who  worked  by  rule  of  thumb;  and 
they  differed  from  one  another  only  in  differences 
of  physical  power  and  moral  aim.  This  was  all 
perfectly  true,  and  much  deeper  and  truer  in- 
sight than  the  cheap  criticism  which  could  not 
see  beyond  superficial  differences,  or  the  fossil 
theories  of  the  old  school,  defended  in  the  pam- 
phlet war  by  men  like  Rippingille,  his  old  editor, 
a  useful  popularizer  of  art,  but  not  a  philosophic 
thinker.  But  Pre-Raphaelitism  was  an  unstable 
compound ;  liable  to  explode  upon  the  experi- 
menter, and  its  component  parts  to  return  to 
their  old  antithesis  of  crude  naturalism  on  the 
one  hand,  and  affectation,  whether  of  piety  or 
poetry  or  simple  reactionary  antiquarianism,  on 
the  other.  And  that  Mr.  Ruskin  did  not  then 
foresee.  All  he  knew  was  that,  just  when  he 
was  sadly  leaving   the  scene,   Turner  gone  and 


PRE-RAPHAELITISM.  1 87 

night  coming  on,  new  lights  arose.  It  was 
really  far  more  noteworthy  that  Millais  and  Ros- 
setti  and  Hunt  were  men  of  genius,  than  that  the 
"  principles  "  they  tried  to  illustrate  were  sound. 
And  Mr.  Ruskin,  always  safe  in  his  intuitions, 
divined  their  power,  and  generously  applauded 
the  dexterous  troop  in  their  unexpected  lampa- 
dephoria. 

Indirectly  he  found  his  reward.  For,  like  Soc- 
rates in  the  dialogue,  by  joining  in  the  festival 
he  found  youths  to  discourse  with,  and  with  them 
gradually  evolved  his  own  republic,  the  ideal  of 
life  which  is  his  real  contribution  to  humanity. 
"  What  good  have  his  writings  done  us  ?  "  Hith- 
erto they  had  been  for  our  enjoyment;  or,  like 
the"  Seven  Lamps,"  vague  outcries;  or,  like  the 
"  Sheepfolds,"  tentative  ideals.  In  the  later  vol- 
umes of  "  Stones  of  Venice  "  we  find  distinct  aims 
prefigured. 

Immediately  after  finishing  the  pamphlet  on 
Pre-Raphaelitism,  he  left  for  the  Continent  with 
his  wife  and  a  friend,  the  Rev.  Daniel  Moore ; 
spent  a  fortnight  in  his  beloved  Savoy ;  and  then 
crossed  the  Alps  with  Mr.  Newton.  On  the  first 
of  September  he  was  at  Venice  again,  for  a  final 
spell  of  labor  on  the  palaces  and  churches.  He 
tells  the  story  of  his  ten  months'  stay  in  a  letter 
to  his  venerable  friend  Rogers,  the  poet,  dated 
23d  June,  1852. 

"  I  was  out  of  health  and  out  of  heart  when  I 
first  got  here.     There  came  much  painful  news 


1 88      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

from  home,1  and  then  such  a  determined  course 
of  bad  weather,  and  every  other  kind  of  annoy- 
ance, that  I  never  was  in  a  temper  fit  to  write  to 
any  one ;  the  worst  of  it  was  that  I  lost  all  feeling 
of  Venice,  and  this  was  the  reason  both  of  my 
not  writing  to  you  and  of  my  thinking  of  you  so 
often.  For  whenever  I  found  myself  getting 
utterly  hard  and  indifferent,  I  used  to  read  over 
a  little  bit  of  the  '  Venice '  in  the  '  Italy,'  and  it 
put  me  always  into  the  right  tone  of  thought 
again,  and  for  this  I  cannot  be  enough  grateful 
to  you.  For  though  I  believe  that  in  the  sum- 
mer, when  Venice  is  indeed  lovely,  when  pome- 
granate blossoms  hang  over  every  garden-wall, 
and  green  sunlight  shoots  through  every  wave, 
custom  will  not  destroy,  or  even  weaken,  the  im- 
pression conveyed  at  first ;  it  is  far  otherwise  in 
the  length  and  bitterness  of  the  Venetian  winters. 
Fighting  with  frosty  winds  at  every  turn  of  the 
canals  takes  away  all  the  old  feeling  of  peace  and 
stillness ;  the  protracted  cold  makes  the  dash  of 
the  water  on  the  walls  a  sound  of  simple  discom- 
fort, and  some  wild  and  dark  day  in  February  one 
starts  to  find  one's  self  actually  balancing  in  one's 
mind  the  relative  advantages  of  land  and  water 
carriage,  comparing  the  Canal  with  Piccadilly, 
and  even  hesitating  whether  for  the  rest  of  one's 
life  one  would  rather  have  a  gondola  within  call 
or  a  hansom.     When  I  used  to  get  into  this  hu- 

1  Among  other  things,  the  deaths  of  Turner  in  December  and  of 
Prout  in  February. 


PRE-RAPHAELITISM.  1 89 

mor  I  always  had  recourse  to  those  lines  of 
yours :  — 

"  '  The  sea  is  in  the  broad,  the  narrow  streets, 
Ebbing  and  flowing,'  etc. ;  — 

and  they  did  me  good  service  for  many  a  day : 
but  at  last  a  time  came  when  the  sea  was  not  in 
the  narrow  streets,  and  was  always  ebbing  and 
not  flowing ;  and  one  day,  when  I  found  just  a 
foot  and  a  half  of  muddy  water  left  under  the 
Bridge  of  Sighs,  and  ran  aground  in  the  Grand 
Canal  as  I  was  going  home,  I  was  obliged  to  give 
the  canals  up.  I  have  never  recovered  the  feeling 
of  them." 

He  then  goes  on  to  lament  the  decay  of  Venice, 
the  idleness  and  the  dissipation  of  the  populace, 
the  lottery-gambling ;  and  to  forebode  the  "  de- 
struction of  old  buildings  and  erection  of  new  " 
changing  the  place  "  into  a  modern  town  —  a  bad 
imitation  of  Paris."  Better  than  that,  he  thinks, 
would  be  utter  neglect ;  St.  Mark's  Place  would 
again  be,  what  it  was  in  the  early  ages,  a  green 
field,  and  the  front  of  the  Ducal  Palace  and  the 
marble  shafts  of  St.  Mark's  would  be  rooted  in 
wild  violets  and  wreathed  with  vines.  "  She  will 
be  beautiful  again  then,  and  I  could  almost  wish 
that  the  time  might  come  quickly,  were  it  not 
that  so  many  noble  pictures  must  be  destroyed 
first.  ...  I  love  Venetian  pictures  more  and 
more,  and  wonder  at  them  every  day  with  greater 
wonder ;  compared  with  all  other  paintings  they 
are  so  easy,  so  instructive,  so  natural ;  everything 


I9O      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

that  the  men  of  other  schools  did  by  rule  and 
called  composition,  done  here  by  instinct  and 
only  called  truth. 

"  I  don't  know  when  I  have  envied  anybody 
more  than  I  did  the  other  day  the  directors  and 
clerks  of  the  Zecca.  There  they  sit  at  inky  deal 
desks,  counting  out  rolls  of  money,  and  curiously 
weighing  the  irregular  and  battered  coinage  of 
which  Venice  boasts ;  and  just  over  their  heads, 
occupying  .the  place  which  in  a  London  counting- 
house  would  be  occupied  by  a  commercial  alma- 
nac, a  glorious  Bonifazio,  —  Solomon  and  the 
Queen  of  Sheba;  and  in  a  less  honorable  corner 
three  old  directors  of  the  Zecca,  very  mercantile- 
looking  men  indeed,  counting  money  also,  like 
the  living  ones,  only  a  little  more  living,  painted 
by  Tintoret ;  not  to  speak  of  the  scattered  Palma 
Vecchios,  and  a  lovely  Benedetto  Diana  which  no 
one  ever  looks  at.  I  wonder  when  the  European 
mind  will  again  awake  to  the  great  fact  that  a 
noble  picture  was  not  painted  to  be  hung,  but  to 
be  seen?  I  only  saw  these  by  accident,  having 
been  detained  in  Venice  by  some  obliging  person 
who  abstracted  some  [of  his  wife's  jewels]  and 
brought  me  thereby  into  various  relations  with 
the  respectable  body  of  people  who  live  at  the 
wrong  end  of  the  Bridge  of  Sighs  —  the  police, 
whom,  in  spite  of  traditions  of  terror,  I  would 
very  willingly  have  changed  for  some  of  those 
their  predecessors  whom  you  have  honored  by  a 
note  in  the  '  Italy.'     The  present  police  appear 


PRE-RAPHAELITISM.  I9I 

to  act  on  exactly  contrary  principles :  yours  found 
the  purse  and  banished  the  loser ;  these  dorit  find 
the  jewels,  and  won't  let  me  go  away.  I  am 
afraid  no  punishment  is  appointed  in  Venetian 
law  for  people  who  steal  time" 

Mr.  Ruskin  returned  to  England  in  July,  1852, 
and  settled  next  door  to  his  old  home  on  Heme 
Hill.  He  said  he  could  not  live  any  more  in 
Park  Street,  with  a  dead  brick  wall  opposite  his 
windows.  And  so,  in  the  old  place  where  he 
wrote  the  first  volume  of  "  Modern  Painters,"  he 
finished  "  Stones  of  Venice,"  with  a  thorough  ac- 
count of  St.  Mark's  and  the  Ducal  Palace  and 
other  ancient  buildings  ;  a  complete  catalogue  of 
Tintoret's  pictures,  —  the  list  he  had  begun  in 
1845;  and  a  history  of  the  successive  styles  of 
architecture,  Byzantine,  Gothic,  and  Renaissance, 
interweaving  illustrations  of  the  human  life  and 
character  that  made  the  art  what  it  was. 

The  kernel  of  the  work  was  the  chapter  on  the 
Nature  of  Gothic  ;  in  which  he  showed,  more  dis- 
tinctly than  in  "  The  Seven  Lamps,"  and  connected 
with  a  wider  range  of  thought,  suggested  by  Pre- 
Raphaelitism,  the  great  doctrine  that  art  cannot 
be  produced  except  by  artists ;  that  architecture, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  an  art,  does  not  mean  the  mechan- 
ical execution,  by  unintelligent  workmen,  of  vapid 
working-drawings  from  an  architect's  office  ;  that, 
just  as  Socrates  postponed  the  day  of  justice  until 
philosophers  should  be  kings,  and  kings  philoso- 
phers, so  Ruskin  postponed  the  reign  of  art  until 
workmen  should  be  artists,  and  artists  workmen. 


I92       THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

A  phrase  ?  A  formula  ?  As  much  a  phrase 
as  Napoleon's  carriere  ouverte  aux  talens.  As 
much  a  formula  as  Luther's  justification  by  faith. 
It  was  at  length  the  frontier  of  his  battle-field 
reached ;  a  real  object  in  life,  a  motive  of  action 
attained ;  a  text  to  teach  from,  a  creed  to  hold  by. 
And  out  of  that  idea  the  whole  of  his  doctrine 
could  be  evolved,  with  all  its  safeguardings  and 
widening  vistas.  For  if  the  workman  must  be 
made  an  artist  he  must  have  the  experience,  the 
feelings  of  an  artist,  as  well  as  the  skill :  and  that 
involves  every  circumstance  of  education  and  op- 
portunity which  may  make  for  his  truest  well- 
being.  And  when  Mr.  Ruskin  came  to  examine 
into  this  subject  practically,  he  found  that  mere 
drawing-schools  and  charitable  efforts  could  not 
make  an  artist  out  of  a  town  mechanic  or  a  country 
bumpkin ;  far  wider  questions  were  complicated 
with  this  of  art  —  nothing  short  of  the  fundamen- 
tal principles  of  human  intercourse  and  social 
economy.  Now  for  the  first  time,  after  much 
sinking  of  trial-shafts,  he  had  reached  the  true  ore 
of  thought,  in  the  deep-lying  strata ;  and  the 
working  of  his  mine  was  begun.  As  we  explore 
the  scene  of  his  labors,  we  can  pick  out  samples 
from  the  heaps  that  mark  his  progress,  and  roughly 
assay  them  and  partly  reckon  up  the  results.  But 
all  the  while  we  must  remember  that  the  results 
are  not  here  before  us ;  they  have  gone  out  into 
the  world ;  they  are  in  circulation,  current  coin  of 
the  realm  of  modern  life ;  won  or  spent,  gambled 


PRE-RAPHAELITISM.  1 93 

for  or  bribed  with,  hoarded  or  wasted ;  until  the 
mint  mark,  often,  has  been  worn  away,  or  the 
image  and  superscription  willfully  defaced. 

But  that  matters  little  to  the  man  who  found 
the  gold ;  and  it  would  matter  less,  could  he  see 
that  his  wealth  and  his  work  are  being  worthily 
inherited.  It  was  that  chapter  on  the  Nature  of 
Gothic  that  served  for  the  first  message  of  peace,  as 
we  shall  hear,  to  the  laboring  classes  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  campaign  of  conciliation ;  and  it  is 
not  without  curious  significance  that  our  greatest 
artist  workman  whom,  with  all  his  circle  and  their 
achievements  and  aspirations,  these  labors  of  Mr. 
Ruskin  and  his  Pre-Raphaelite  friends  created,  — 
William  Morris,  —  should  now  have  chosen  this 
chapter  to  reproduce,  for  love  of  it,  and  of  the  art 
in  which  he  has  enshrined  it. 

"  And  do  you  mean,  said  Socrates,  that  they 
will  be  Light-bearers ;  and  hand  the  light  on  from 
man  to  man  in  the  race  ?  Yes,  said  War-duke ; 
do  stay  with  us,  and  don't  sulk.  And  Bright-eyes, 
—  It  seems,  he  said,  you  must  wait." 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE   EDINBURGH   LECTURES. 

(1853-1854.) 

"The  general  history  of  art  and  literature  shows  that  the  highest 
achievements  of  the  human  mind  are,  as  a  rule,  not  favorably  received  at 
first."  —  Schopenhauer  (Lebensweisheit). 

By  the  end  of  July,  1853,  "  Stones  of  Venice  " 
was  finished,  as  well  as  a  description  of  Giotto's 
works  at  Padua,  written  for  the  Arundel  Society. 
The  social  duties  of  the  season  were  over;  and 
Mr.  Ruskin  took  a  cottage  in  Glenfinlas,  where 
to  spend  a  well-earned  holiday.  He  invited  Mr. 
Millais,  by  this  time  an  intimate  and  heartily 
admired  friend,  to  go  down  into  Scotland  with 
him  for  the  summer's  rest,  —  such  rest  as  two 
men  of  energy  and  talent  take,  in  the  change  of 
scene  without  giving  up  the  habit  of  work.  Mr. 
Ruskin  devoted  himself  first  to  foreground  studies, 
and  made  careful  drawings  of  rock  -  detail ;  and 
then,  being  invited  to  give  a  course  of  lectures 
before  the  Philosophical  Society  of  Edinburgh,  he 
was  soon  busy  writing  once  more,  and  preparing 
the  cartoon-sketches,  "  diagrams "  as  he  calls 
them,  to  illustrate  his  subjects.  Dr.  Acland  had 
joined  the  party;  and  it  is  said  that  one  day,  in 


THE  EDINBURGH  LECTURES.         1 95 

the  ravine,  he  asked  Millais  to  sketch  their  host 
as  he  stood  contemplatively  on  the  rocks,  with  the 
torrent  thundering  beside  him.  The  sketch  was 
produced  at  a  sitting ;  and,  with  additional  work 
in  the  following  winter,  became  the  well-known 
portrait  now  at  Oxford  in  the  possession  of  Sir 
Henry  Acland,  much  the  best  likeness  of  this 
early  period. 

Another  portrait  of  Mr.  Ruskin,  not  so  highly 
finished,  but  cleverly  sketched,  was  painted  —  in 
words  —  by  one  of  his  audience  at  Edinburgh  on 
November  ist,  when  he  gave  the  opening  lecture 
of  his  course,  his  first  appearance  on  the  plat- 
form. The  account  is  extracted  from  the  "  Edin- 
burgh Guardian"  of  November  19,  1853:  — 

"  Before  you  can  see  the  lecturer,  however,  you 
must  get  into  the  hall,  and  that  is  not  an  easy 
matter,  for,  long  before  the  doors  are  opened, 
the  fortunate  holders  of  season  tickets  begin 
to  assemble,  so  that  the  crowd  not  only  fills  the 
passage,  but  occupies  the  pavement  in  front  of  the 
entrance  and  overflows  into  the  road.  At  length 
the  doors  open,  and  you  are  carried  through  the 
passage  into  the  hall,  where  you  take  up,  of  course, 
the  best  available  position  for  seeing  and  hearing. 
.  .  .  After  waiting  a  weary  time  .  .  .  the  door  by 
the  side  of  the  platform  opens,,  and  a  thin  gentle- 
man with  light  hair,  a  stiff  white  cravat,  dark 
overcoat  with  velvet  collar,  walking,  too,  with  a 
slight  stoop,  goes  up  to  the  desk,  and,  looking 
round  with  a  self-possessed  and  somewhat  formal 


196      THE    LIFE   AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

air,  proceeds  to  take  off  his  greatcoat,  revealing 
thereby,  in  addition  to  the  orthodox  white  cravat, 
the  most  orthodox  of  white  waistcoats.  .  .  .  '  Dark 
hair,  pale  face,  and  massive  marble  brow  —  that  is 
my  ideal  of  Mr.  Ruskin,'  said  a  young  lady  near 
us.  This  proved  to  be  quite  a  fancy  portrait,  as 
unlike  the  reality  as  could  well  be  imagined.  Mr. 
Ruskin  has  light  sand-colored  hair;  his  face  is 
more  red  than  pale ;  the  mouth  well  cut,  with  a 
good  deal  of  decision  in  its  curve,  though  some- 
what wanting  in  sustained  dignity  and  strength ; 
an  aquiline  nose  ;  his  forehead  by  no  means  broad 
or  massive,  but  the  brows  full  and  well  bound  to- 
gether ;  the  eye  we  could  not  see,  in  consequence 
of  the  shadows  that  fell  upon  his  countenance 
from  the  lights  overhead,  but  we  are  sure  that  the 
poetry  and  passion  we  looked  for  almost  in  vain 
in  other  features  must  be  concentrated  there. 
After  sitting  for  a  moment  or  two,  and  glancing 
round  at  the  sheets  on  the  wall  as  he  takes  off  his 
gloves,  he  rises,  and  leaning  slightly  over  the  desk, 
with  his  hands  folded  across,  begins  at  once: 
4  You  are  proud  of  your  good  city  of  Edinburgh,1 
etc. 

"  And  now  for  the  style  of  the  lecture.  Properly 
speaking,  there  were  two  styles  essentially  dis- 
tinct, and  not  well  blended,  —  a  speaking  and  a 
writing  style ;  the  former  colloquial  and  spoken 
offhand  ;  the  latter  rhetorical  and  carefully  read 
in  quite  a  different  voice,  —  we  had  almost  said 
intoned.  .  .  .  His  elocution  is  peculiar ;  he  has  a 


THE    EDINBURGH    LECTURES.  1 97 

difficulty  in  sounding  the  letter  'f;'  and  there  is 
a  peculiar  tone  in  the  rising  and  falling  of  his 
voice  at  measured  intervals,  in  a  way  scarcely  ever 
heard,  except  in  the  public  lection  of  the  service 
appointed  to  be  read  in  churches.  These  are  the 
two  things  with  which,  perhaps,  you  are  most  sur- 
prised, —  his  dress  and  manner  of  speaking,  — 
both  of  which  (the  white  waistcoat  notwithstand- 
ing) are  eminently  clerical.  You  naturally  expect, 
in  one  so  independent,  a  manner  free  from  con- 
ventional restraint,  and  an  utterance,  whatever 
may  be  the  power  of  voice,  at  least  expressive  of 
a  strong  individuality;  and  you  find  instead  a 
Christ  Church  man  of  ten  years'  standing,  who  has 
not  yet  taken  orders ;  his  dress  and  manner  de- 
rived from  his  college  tutor,  and  his  elocution  from 
the  chapel-reader." 

The  lectures  were  a  summing-up,  in  popular 
form,  of  the  chief  topics  of  Mr.  Ruskin's  thought 
during  the  last  two  years.  The  first  stated,  with 
more  decision  and  warmth  than  part  of  his  au- 
dience approved,  or  than  would  have  been  ex- 
pected from  the  impression  he  made  upon  the 
writer  in  the  "  Guardian,"  his  plea  for  the  Gothic 
Revival,  for  the  use  of  Gothic  as  a  domestic  style. 
He  tried  to  show  by  the  analogy  of  natural  forms 
that  the  Gothic  arch  and  gable  were  in  themselves 
more  beautiful,  and  more  logical  in  construction, 
than  the  horizontal  lintel  and  low  pediment  of 
the  ordinary  Renaissance-Classic  then  in  vogue. 
The  next  lecture,  given  three  days  later,  went  on 


I98       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

to  contrast  the  wealth  of  ornament  in  mediaeval 
buildings  with  the  poor  survivals  of  conventional- 
ized patterns  which  did  duty  for  decoration  in 
nineteenth-century  "  Greek  "  architecture ;  and  he 
raised  a  laugh  by  comparing  a  typical  stonema- 
son's lion  with  a  real  tiger's  head,  drawn  in  the 
Edinburgh  zoological  gardens  by  Mr.  Millais. 
He  showed  how  a  gradual  Gothicizing  of  the 
common  dwelling-house  was  possible,  by  intro- 
ducing a  porch  here  and  an  oriel  window  there, 
piece  by  piece,  as  indeed  had  been  done  in  Ven- 
ice. And  he  pointed  out  that  this  kind  of  work 
would  give  opportunities  for  freer  and  more  artis- 
tic workmanship ;  it  would  be  an  education  in 
itself,  and  raise  the  builder's  man  from  a  mere 
mechanical  drudge  into  an  intelligent  and  inter- 
ested craftsman. 

The  last  two  lectures,  on  November  15  th  and 
1 8th,  were  on  painting,  briefly  reviewing  the  his- 
tory of  landscape  and  the  life  and  aims  of  Turner ; 
and,  finally,  Christian  art  and  sincerity  in  imagi- 
nation, which  was  now  put  forth  as  the  guiding 
principle  of  Pre-Raphaelitism.  The  proud  pos- 
sessor of  a  cut  and  dry  creed  —  and  such,  in  spite 
of  much  talk  about  progress,  we  have  always  with 
us,  —  will  be  stumbled  by  this  new  milestone 
in  Mr.  Ruskin's  intellectual  pilgrimage.  But  no 
educated  reader  or  writer  would  accompany  the 
rubbing  of  his  shins  with  quite  so  unrestrained 
an  outcry  as  was  possible  in  the  younger  days  of 
the  century.     It  is   most  difficult  to  understand 


THE  EDINBURGH  LECTURES.         1 99 

the  violence  of  language,  the  fanaticism  of  par- 
tisanship, which  were  common,  then,  in  contro- 
versies about  poor  innocent  art ;  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  understand  them,  unless  one  knew 
that  the  public  was  very  eager  after  pictures  and 
architecture,  but  very  ill-informed  about  them ; 
and  that,  consequently,  certain  "  existing  interests  " 
existed  beautifully  on  the  very  darkness  and  decay 
of  the  world  they  adorned,  like  orchids  in  the 
Amazonian  woods.  To  let  in  the  light  was  to 
cut  at  the  roots  of  these  pretty  parasites ;  and 
fear  for  their  pets,  if  not  for  their  own  arbors, 
caused  men  of  position  and  education,  writers  in 
the  best  newspapers  and  magazines,  to  use  terms 
of  childlike  passion,  —  to  lose  their  critical  cool- 
headedness,  —  in  a  way  which  the  respectable 
editor  of  to-day  would  rule  out  of  order. 

For  instance,  while  these  lectures  were  being 
prepared,  the  Rev.  Edward  Young,  M.  A.,  gave 
a  lecture  at  Bristol  on  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  in 
which  he  arraigned  their  arrogance,  bigotry,  and 
destructiveness ;  labeled  them  unwholesome  and 
ungenerous  ;  declared  that  they  were  pandering  to 
the  downward  tendencies  of  the  age,  and  cried, 
"  Woe,  woe,  woe,  to  '  exceedingly  young  men  of 
stubborn  instincts,'  "  —  a  quotation,  without  the 
context,  from  Mr.  Ruskin,  —  the  "  Woe,  woe,  woe," 
being  his  own,  of  course ;  rather  profane,  for  a 
clergyman. 

This  lecture,  when  printed,  the  "  Athenaeum  " 
reviewed  at  length,  as  a  serious  contribution  to 


200      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

literature.  It  began  by  calling  Mr.  Young  sen- 
sible and  eloquent ;  after  a  paragraph  or  two  it 
doubted  his  fairness  and  impartiality,  and  "thought 
he  went  rather  far."  For  its  own  part,  it  objected 
to  the  antiquarian  spirit  of  the  age :  "  What  do 
we  know  of  Tubal  Cain  or  Nimrod,  of  Assur  or 
Menes?  We  cannot  unravel  the  Pyramid  mys- 
tery, and  we  know  not  who  built  them.  So  must 
it  ever  be."  That  was  the  "  Athenaeum's  "  notion 
of  archaeology  and  of  impartiality ;  and  so  frank 
a  confession  of  one-sidedness  —  of  adhesion  to  the 
utilitarian  eclaircissement  —  conveniently  relieves 
us  of  the  trouble  of  analyzing  its  authority,  forty 
years  ago. 

When  the  "  Lectures  on  Architecture  and  Paint- 
ing "  were  published,  the  "  Athenaeum  "  showed 
its  impartiality  thus :  "  Mr.  Ruskin  has  outdone 
himself  in  these  lectures.  Cleverness  and  absurd- 
ity —  deep  insight  in  one  direction,  stone  blind- 
ness in  every  other — vigor  and  weakness — power 
of  explanation  and  unfairness  of  statement  —  are 
found  on  every  page,  from  frontispiece  to  finis. 
The  absence  of  logic  has  seldom  been  so  conspic- 
uously paraded.  .  .  .  Why  are  these  heads  placed 
in  this  conspicuous  contrast  ?  To  prove  that  the 
Greeks  did  not  copy  from  nature.  See  the  ab- 
surdity here  involved.  A  Greek  lion  is  not  like  a 
Scotch  tiger ;  hence,  Greek  art  is  not  natural !  " 

And  so  on,  for  eleven  columns;  for  though 
Ruskin  is  of  course  absurd,  he  is  an  uncommonly 
interesting   and   plausible   fellow,   and   we   can't 


THE  EDINBURGH  LECTURES.         201 

afford  to  miss  the  chance  of  sprinkling  his  name 
about  our  pages.  Indeed,  however,  there  were 
weak  points  in  these  lectures,  considered  as  an 
argumentative  essay.  They  were  not  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  train  of  thought  by  which  Mr.  Ruskin 
reached  his  conclusions :  he  is  not  a  good  expo- 
nent of  such  trains  of  thought,  and  continually 
does  himself  injustice  by  stating  the  conclusion 
without  the  premises ;  though  now  and  then  he 
works  out  a  lesson  in  analysis  as  nobody  else  can. 
They  were  written  under  peculiar  circumstances 
of  domestic  anxiety  which  would  have  completely 
paralyzed  another  man ;  the  marvel  is  that  he 
was  able  to  deliver  these  lectures  at  all,  "  looking 
round  with  a  self-possessed  air."  And  while  they 
sum  up  his  standpoint  at  the  time,  they  must 
have  been  wholly  unintelligible  to  any  who  had 
not  read  his  previous  works.  Perhaps,  too,  it  was 
hasty  of  the  writer  to  suppose  that  the  modern 
Scotch  have  John  Knox's  respect  for  the  authority 
of  the  Bible ;  or  that  the  slight  suggestive  touches, 
with  which  he  sketched  contrasting  ages  of  thought 
and  schools  of  art,  would  be  easily  recognized  and 
read  by  people  who,  in  the  surprise  of  his  sudden 
raid,  so  far  forgot  their  schooling  as  to  declare, 
with  the  "  Athenaeum,"  that  the  Middle  Ages  were 
characterized  by  cannibalism  and  obscenity,  and 
that  Dante  seldom  drew  an  image  from  nature ; 
who,  in  the  act  of  defending  Greek  art  against 
Ruskin  the  Goth,  had  never  heard  of  the  impor- 
tant Stele  of  Aristion,  known  as  "  The  Soldier  of 


202       THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

Marathon  ;  "  who,  as  judges  of  modern  art,  found 
that  "  water-color  painting  can  scarcely  satisfy  the 
mind  craving  for  human  action  and  human  pas- 
sion ;  '•'  and  "  objected  to  the  painting  of  contem- 
porary history  because  we  have  had  enough  of 
portraits,  and  as  for  modern  battles,  they  are  mere 
affairs  of  smoke  and  feathers." 

Why  do  I  rake  up  these  old  quarrels  ?  Because 
the  modern  Ruskin-reader,  innocent  of  history,  is 
often  surprised  and  pained  at  indications  of  bitter- 
ness he  cannot  explain,  and  suspects  some  canker- 
ing grudge  on  the  author's  part,  some  moral  defect 
which  invalidates  his  judgment  and  impairs  his 
argument.  Whereas  the  truth  is  that  during 
these  ten  years  (1844-54)  Mr.  Ruskin  had  to  fight 
his  way  against  strenuous  opposition  in  certain 
quarters ;  to  hear  language  used  against  himself 
and  his  friends  which  was  to  the  last  degree 
personal  and  scurrilous ;  to  which  the  humorous 
petulancies  of  his  own  old  age,  as  calling  Mr. 
Goldwin  Smith  a  "  goose,"  and  such  obiter  dicta, 
were  harmless  trifling,  at  the  worst.  In  these 
earlier  times,  though  he  gave  many  a  "  smashing 
blow "  to  fallacies,  he  did  not  render  railing  for 
railing :  it  was  measures,  not  men,  that  he  at- 
tacked. Sometimes,  of  course,  the  cap  fitted  one 
or  other  head :  that  could  hardly  be  helped. 

The  argumentum  ad  hominem  is  always  illogi- 
cal: and  this  was  never  shown  more  distinctly 
than  in  the  discussion  which  he  raised,  especially 
in  these  lectures,  about  the  relations  of   art  and 


THE    EDINBURGH    LECTURES.  203 

morality.  He  did  seem  to  think,  up  to  this  time, 
that  a  good  painter  must  be  what  is  commonly 
called  a  good  man.  He  had  not  clearly  formu- 
lated the  doctrine  of  his  Oxford  Lectures,  that  art 
simply  reflects  the  general  morality  of  the  race 
and  age,  and  that  it  is  only  indirectly  connected 
with  the  individual  character  of  the  painter ;  and 
that,  again,  only  in  ideal,  and  not  in  social  mo- 
rality. It  was  in  this  opinion  that  he  tried  to  make 
Turner's  virtues  shine ;  and  rightly,  in  so  far  as 
he  was  doing  justice  to  a  great  man  whom  the 
world  had  grossly  misunderstood  ;  rightly,  also,  as 
a  counterstroke  to  the  vulgar  error  that  proclaims 
genius  to  be  another  name  for  lunacy,  and  great- 
ness merely  a  form  of  successful  cunning.  But  I 
venture  to  think  that,  if  Mr.  Ruskin  had  found 
time  to  write  Turner's  life  at  full  length,  thor- 
oughly balancing  the  different  elements  in  that 
strange  character,  and  tracing  the  growth  of  the 
man  as  he  had  traced  the  growth  of  Venetian  art, 
instead  of  contenting  himself  with  incomplete 
notices  in  scattered  contexts,  —  he  would  then 
have  defined  his  views  more  clearly,  to  his  own 
great  advantage;  and  written  a  noble  work,  to 
ours.  No  doubt  he  did  not  wish  to  interfere  with 
Walter  Thorn bury's  book,  then  in  preparation :  he 
certainly  collected  a  mass  of  most  interesting  ma- 
terial, which  fully  bears  out  the  view  he  took  of 
Turner's  character. 

While  staying  at  Edinburgh  Mr.  Ruskin  met 
the  various  celebrities  of  modern  Athens,  some  of 


204      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

them  at  the  table  of  his  former  fellow-traveler  in 
Venice,  Mrs.  Jameson.  One  lifelong  friendship 
was  begun  during  this  time,  with  Dr.  John  Brown, 
the  author  of  "  Rab  and  his  Friends  "  and  "  Pet 
Marjorie,"  who  corresponded  with  Mr.  Ruskin  till 
his  death  in  1882,  on  terms  of  the  greatest  affec- 
tion. 

The  next  May  (1854)  the  Pre-Raphaelites  again 
needed  his  defense.  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  exhib- 
ited the  Light  of  the  World  and  the  Awakening 
Conscience,  —  two  pictures  whose  intention  was 
misunderstood  by  the  public,  though  as  serious,  as 
sincere,  as  the  religious  paintings  of  the  Campo 
Santo  of  Pisa.  Mr.  Ruskin  made  them  the  theme 
of  two  more  letters  to  the  "  Times  ;  "  mentioning, 
by  the  way,  the  "  spurious  imitations  of  Pre-Ra- 
phaelite work  "  which  were  already  becoming  com- 
mon. And  on  starting  for  his  summer  tour  on 
the  Continent,  he  left  a  new  pamphlet  for  publi- 
cation on  the  opening  of  the  Crystal  Palace. 
There  had  been  much  rejoicing  over  the  "  new 
style  of  architecture  "  in  glass  and  iron,  and  its 
purpose  as  a  palace  of  art.  Mr.  Ruskin,  who  had 
declined,  in  the  last  chapter  of  "  The  Seven 
Lamps,"  to  join  in  the  cry  for  a  new  style,  was  not 
at  all  ready  to  accept  this  as  any  real  artistic 
advance ;  and  took  the  opportunity  to  plead  again 
for  the  great  buildings  of  the  past,  which  were 
being  destroyed  or  neglected,  while  the  British 
public  was  glorifying  its  gigantic  greenhouse.  The 
pamphlet  practically  suggested  the  establishment 


THE    EDINBURGH    LECTURES.  205 

of  the  society  for  the  preservation  of  ancient 
buildings  which  has  since  come  into  operation. 
Some  of  the  critics  made  merry  over  the  proposal, 
not  foreseeing  how  the  tide  would  turn.  Others, 
like  the  "  Builder,"  to  the  credit  of  their  own  saga- 
city, approved  a  movement  which  is  now  doing 
good  work  in  England,  and,  after  many  years,  has 
spread  to  Italy,  as  a  direct  result  of  Mr.  Ruskin's 
work.  His  pupil,  Signor  Giacomo  Boni,  after  rec- 
ommending himself  in  Venice  as  the  practical 
exponent  of  these  principles  at  the  ducal  palace, 
has  lately  been  appointed  by  the  government  to 
the  post  of  director  of  the  monuments  of  Italy, 
already  with  the  happiest  results.  And  so,  in 
spite  of  opposition  year  by  year  diminishing,  and 
withdrawing  itself  into  the  lower  class  of  journal- 
ism, Mr.  Ruskin's  work  went  on,  until  he  was 
practically  acknowledged  to  be  the  leading 
authority  upon  matters  of  art  —  almost  the  dicta- 
tor of  taste.  Pre-Raphaelitism  won  a  complete 
victory  ;  Gothic  forms  were  soon  introduced  into 
domestic  architecture  ;  Turner  became  recognized 
as  the  greatest  of  all  landscapists ;  art-education 
was  extended  to  the  masses.  And  yet  Mr.  Rus- 
kin  was  not  satisfied.  What  more  could  he 
want  ? 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   WORKING    MEN'S    COLLEGE. 

(1854-1855.) 

"  Sighing,  I  turned  at  last  to  win 
Once  more  the  London  dirt  and  din." 

Rossetti. 

One  is  sometimes  called  upon  to  sympathize 
with  friends  at  a  loss  for  a  subject.  Form,  we 
have  learned,  makes  the  artist;  the  gifts  of 
prophecy,  we  hear,  have  been  withdrawn ;  and 
there  comes  from  the  abodes  of  talent  a  bitter  cry 
of  "  no  work  to  do  "  —  no  interests,  no  excite- 
ments, no  burning  question  to  illustrate,  no  neg- 
lected truth  to  teach,  no  message  to  deliver.  "  The 
earth  falls  asunder,  being  old."  With  Mr.  Ruskin 
it  was  not  so.  Time  was,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  in 
a  languid  mood,  he  versified  the  situation  in  a 
poem  on  Nothing ;  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
needed  to  do  so  again.  Sometimes  he  has  re- 
peated himself,  but  in  a  general  way  every  lecture 
he  gave  was  a  new  lecture,  every  sketch  he  made 
was  a  fresh  conception  ;  and  no  sooner  had  he 
finished  one  book  than  he  was  busy  on  another, 
like  a  wine-treader  toiling  to  keep  the  grapes 
under. 


THE   WORKING   MENS    COLLEGE.  207 

This  summer  of  1854  he  projected  a  study  of 
Swiss  history :  to  tell  the  tale  of  six  chief  towns 
—  Geneva,  Fribourg,  Basle,  Thun,  Baden,  and 
Schaffhausen,  to  which  in  1858  he  added  Rhein- 
felden  and  Bellinzona.  He  intended  to  illustrate 
the  work  with  pictures  of  the  places  described. 
He  began  with  his  drawing  of  Thun,  a  large 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  town  with  its  river  and 
bridges,  roofs  and  towers,  all  exquisitely  denned 
with  the  pen,  and  broadly  colored  in  fluctuating 
tints  that  seem  to  melt  always  into  the  same  aerial 
blue  ;  the  blue,  high  up  the  picture,  beyond  the 
plain,  deepening  into  distant  mountains.  Sup- 
pose a  Whistler  etching  and  a  Whistler  color- 
sketch  combined  upon  one  paper,  and  you  form 
an  idea  of  the  style  of  this  series :  except  that 
Mr.  Ruskin's  work,  being  calculated  for  book 
illustration,  and  not  for  decoration,  can  only  be 
seen  in  the  hand,  and  totally  loses  its  effect  by 
hanging  —  especially  by  exhibition  hanging.  But 
the  delicate  detail  and  studied  use  of  the  line  are 
there,  together  with  a  calculated  unity  of  effect 
and  balance  of  color  which  by  1858  had  begun  to 
degenerate  into  a  mannered  purple. 

But  his  father  wanted  to  see  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers "  completed ;  and  so  he  began  his  third  vol- 
ume at  Vevey,  with  the  discussion  of  the  grand 
style,  in  which  he  at  last  broke  loose  from  Rey- 
nolds, as  he  was  bound  to  do,  after  his  study  of 
Pre-Raphaelitism,  and  all  the  varied  experiences 
of  the  last  ten  years.     The  lesson  of  the  Tulse 


208       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

Hill  ivy  had  been  brought  home  to  him  in  many  . 
ways :  he  had  found  it  to  be  more  and  more  true 
that  Nature  is  after  all  the  criterion  of  art,  and 
that  the  greatest  painters  were  always  those 
whose  aim,  so  far  as  they  were  conscious  of  an 
aim,  was  to  take  fact  for  their  starting-point. 
Idealism,  beauty,  imagination,  and  the  rest,  though 
necessary  to  art,  could  not,  he  felt,  be  made  the 
object  of  study;  they  were  the  gift  of  heredity, 
of  circumstances,  of  national  aspirations  and  vir- 
tues ;  not  to  be  produced  by  the  best  of  rules,  or 
achieved  by  the  best  of  intentions. 

What  his  own  view  of  his  own  work  was  can  be 
gathered  from  a  letter  to  an  Edinburgh  student, 
written  on  August  6,  1854:  "  I  am  sure  I  never 
said  anything  to  dissuade  you  from  trying  to 
excel  or  to  do  great  things.  I  only  wanted  you 
to  be  sure  that  your  efforts  were  made  with  a 
substantial  basis,  so  that  just  in  the  moment  of 
push  your  footing  might  not  give  way  beneath 
you  ;  and  also  I  wanted  you  to  feel  that  long  and 
steady  effort  made  in  a  contented  way  does  more 
than  violent  effort  made  from  some  strong  motive 
or  under  some  enthusiastic  impulse.  And  I  re- 
peat, for  of  this  I  am  perfectly  sure,  that  the 
best  things  are  only  to  be  done  in  this  way.  It 
is  very  difficult  thoroughly  to  understand  the  dif- 
ference between  indolence  and  reserve  of  strength, 
between  apathy  and  severity,  between  palsy  and 
patience ;  but  there  is  all  the  difference  in  the 
world;  and  nearly  as  many  men  are  ruined  by 


THE   WORKING   MEN  S    COLLEGE.  209 

inconsiderate  exertions  as  by  idleness  itself.  To 
do  as  much  as  you  can  heartily  and  happily  do 
each  day  in  a  well-determined  direction,  with  a 
view  to  far-off  results,  with  present  enjoyment  of 
one's  work,  is  the  only  proper,  the  only  essentially 
profitable  way." 

This  habit  of  great  industry  not  only  enabled 
Mr.  Ruskin  to  get  through  a  vast  amount  of  work, 
but  it  helped  him  over  times  of  trouble,  of  which 
his  readers  and  acquaintances,  for  the  most  part, 
had  little  idea.  To  them  he  appeared  as  one  of 
those  deities  of  Epicurus,  sipping  his  nectar  and 
hurling  his  thunderbolts,  or,  when  it  pleased  him, 
showering  the  sunshine  of  his  eloquence  upon 
delighted  crowds.  He  had  wealth  and  fame ;  the 
converse  of  wit  and  genius ;  the  delight  of  travel 
and  intense  appreciation  of  all  the  pleasures  that 
traveling  afforded.  The  fancy  of  the  outside  pub- 
lic pictured  him  in  the  possession  of  rare  works 
of  art,  of  admiring  friends,  of  a  beautiful  wife. 
They  did  not  know,  as  we  do,  the  strange,  ill- 
omened  circumstances  of  his  marriage  ;  they  had 
not  followed  him  about,  as  we  have,  from  place  to 
place,  and  seen  him  in  continual  suffering  and 
struggle  of  mind  and  body ;  they  could  not  guess, 
as  the  thoughtful  reader  can,  the  effort  needed  on 
his  part  to  do  what  he  believed  to  be  his  duty 
toward  a  wife  whose  affection  he  earnestly  sought, 
but  whose  tastes  were  discordant  with  his;  nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  disappointment  and  dis- 
illusioning of   a  young  girl   who  found  herself 


2IO      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

married,  by  parental  arrangement,  to  a  man  with 
whom  she  had  nothing  in  common ;  in  habits  of 
thought  and  life,  though  not  so  much  in  years, 
her  senior ;  taking  "  small  notice,  or  austerely,"  of 
the  gayer  world  she  preferred,  "  his  mind  half- 
buried  in  some  weightier  argument,  or  fancy- 
borne,  perhaps,  upon  the  rise  and  long  roll  "  of  his 
periods.  And  his  readers  and  the  public  were 
intensely  puzzled  when  she  left  him. 

To  his  acquaintances,  however,  it  was  no  great 
surprise,  though,  with  one  exception,  they  took 
his  part,  and  fully  exonerated  him  from  blame. 
He,  with  his  consciousness  of  having  fulfilled  all 
the  obligations  he  had  undertaken,  and  with  an 
old-fashioned  delicacy  and  chivalry  which  revolted 
alike  from  explanation  and  from  recrimination, 
set  up  no  defense,  brought  no  counter-charges, 
and  preferred  to  let  gossip  do  its  worst.  It  was 
only  the  other  day  that  a  public  lecturer,  who  had 
quoted  a  passage  of  Mr.  Ruskin's,  was  asked 
whether  it  were  not  true  that  Ruskin  had  run 
away  with  somebody's  wife.  That  is  a  very  mild 
version  of  the  lies  that,  one  time  or  other,  have 
been  current  about  him,  scandals  which  have 
had  all  the  more  weight  because  he  never  cared 
to  speak  out  for  himself,  even  to  people  who 
believe  that  they  are  his  intimates.  There  are 
many  tales  whispered  behind  his  back  that  are 
perfectly  true  —  of  somebody  else,  of  different  peo- 
ple who  have  been  his  friends,  at  one  time  or 
another,  —  people  whose  reputation  he  values,  it 


THE   WORKING   MENS    COLLEGE.  211 

seems,  more  than  his  own.  So  much  so,  that 
while  he  gossips  about  early  days  and  youthful 
follies,  laments  the  mistakes  of  his  life  and  disap- 
pointments of  his  age,  he  has  never  let  one  single 
word  escape  to  clear  his  own  character  at  the 
expense  of  others.  And  this  is  the  man  they  call 
egoist. 

In  that  affair  of  1854,  how  little  blame  really 
attached  to  him  can  be  gathered  from  the  con- 
tinuance of  valued  friendships  and  expressions  of 
esteem  on  the  part  of  several  who  would  have 
been  the  most  likely  to  judge  him  severely  if  they 
had  found  him  in  the  wrong ;  —  such  as  Miss 
Mitford,  who  not  only  stood  firmly  by  him,  but  in- 
troduced him  to  her  friends  the  Brownings.  Mrs. 
Browning  wrote,  early  in  1855,  "We  went  to 
Denmark  Hill  yesterday,  to  have  luncheon  with 
them  (Mr.  Ruskin  and  his  parents)  and  see  the 
Turners,  which,  by  the  way,  are  divine.  I  like 
Mr.  Ruskin  very  much,  and  so  does  Robert :  very 
gentle  yet  earnest,  refined,  and  truthful.  I  like 
him  very  much.  We  count  him  one  among  the 
valuable  acquaintances  made  this  year  in  Eng- 
land." 

He  tells  in  "  Praeterita  "  how,  about  this  time, 
he  used  to  go  a  good  deal  into  society,  and  "  some- 
times, indeed,  an  incident  happened  that  was  amus- 
ing or  useful  to  me ;  I  heard  Macaulay  spout 
the  first  chapter  of  Isaiah,  without  understand- 
ing a  syllable  of  it;  saw  the  Bishop  of  Oxford 
taught  by  Sir  Robert  Inglis  to  drink  sherry-cob- 


212       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

bier  through  a  straw ;  and  formed  one  of  the  wor- 
shipful concourse  invited  by  the  Bunsen  family, 
to  hear  them  '  talk  Bunsenese  '  (Lady  Trevelyan), 
and  see  them  making  presents  to  —  each  other, 
from  their  family  Christmas-tree,  and  private  man- 
ger of  German  Magi.  But,  as  a  rule,  the  hours 
given  to  the  polite  circles  were  an  angering  pen- 
ance to  me."  In  the  performance  of  these  duties 
he  met,  however,  Lady  Mount  Temple,  who  has 
always  been  one  of  his  best  and  most  valued 
friends.  It  was  through  Mr.  Cowper  Temple 
that  he  was  introduced  to  Lord  Palmerston,  not 
with  the  least  result  on  either  side,  in  any  public 
expressions  of  opinion  ;  for  Mr.  Ruskin  was  never 
made  for  "  practical  "  or  party  politics. 

Another  friend  who  stood  by  him,  and  perhaps 
helped  him  out  of  himself  most  effectually  by 
giving  him  some  new  work  to  do,  was  Frederick 
Denison  Maurice.  The  whole  story  of  the  Work- 
ing Men's  College,  and  other  efforts  to  get  into 
touch  with  the  laboring  classes,  must  be  read  in 
the  biography  of  Maurice  by  his  son,  and  in  such 
of  the  literature  of  the  time,  like  Kingsley's 
"  Alton  Locke,"  as  reflects  the  spirit  of  the  enter- 
prise. It  was  a  brave  attempt,  in  an  age  when 
such  attempts  were  regarded  as  mere  Quixotism, 
to  redress  some  of  the  crying  evils  of  social  ine- 
quality ;  and  if  it  failed  of  great  direct  result,  it 
certainly  led  the  way  to  other  attempts  to  solve 
the  problem  of  fraternity.  It  was,  at  all  events,  a 
step  towards  the  carrying  out  of  doctrines  which 


THE    WORKING    MEN  S    COLLEGE.  2  1 3 

Mr.  Ruskin  had  been  preaching,  the  improvement 
of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  workman.  Indeed, 
his  influence  was  very  definitely  acknowledged 
by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Furnivall  (afterwards  well- 
known  in  the  New  Shakespeare  and  the  Brown- 
ing Societies)  printed,  and  distributed  to  all  comers 
at  the  opening  lecture,1  October  30,  1854,  as  a 
manifesto  of  the  movement,  that  chapter  on  the 
Nature  of  Gothic  from  "  The  Stones  of  Venice." 

Mr.  Ruskin  took  charge  of  the  drawing  classes 
at  the  college  from  the  commencement,  at  first 
single-handed.  He  attended  from  November  2d, 
on  every  Thursday  evening  from  8.30  to  10,  until 
the  Thursday  before  Christmas,  when  they  had 
their  two  weeks'  vacation.  By  the  beginning  of 
next  term  he  had  two  allies  in  his  work,  one  a 
friend  of  Maurice's,  Mr.  Lowes  Dickinson,  whose 
portrait  of  Maurice  was  mentioned  with  honor  in 
the  "  Notes  on  the  Academy ; "  his  portrait  of 
Kingsley  hangs  in  the  hall  of  the  novelist  profes- 
sor's college  at  Cambridge.  The  other  was  a 
friend  of  Mr.  Ruskin's. 

Only  the  reader  who  has  engaged  in  this  form  of 
philanthropic  labor  —  old-fashioned  night-schools, 
or  modern  lads'  clubs  or  carving-classes  —  quite 
understands  what  it  involves,  and  how  difficult  it 
is  for  an  artist  or  a  literary  man,  after  his  seden- 

1  At  St.  Martin's  Hall,  Long  Acre.  The  classes  were  begun  at 
31  Red  Lion  Square.  Mr.  Ruskin  also  superintended  classes 
taught  by  Messrs.  Jeffrey  and  E.  Cooke  at  the  Working  Women's 
(afterwards  Working  Men  and  Women's)  College,  Queen  Square. 


214      THE    LIFE   AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

tary  day's  work,  to  drag  his  tired  brain  and  over- 
excited nerves  to  a  crowded  room  in  some  un- 
savory neighborhood,  and  to  endure  the  noise, 
the  glare,  the  closeness,  and,  worst  of  all,  perhaps, 
the  indocility  of  a  class  of  learners  for  whom  the 
discipline  of  the  ordinary  school  or  college  does 
not  exist;  who  have  no  fear  of  deans  or  exam- 
iners ;  who  must  be  coaxed  to  work,  and  humored 
into  perseverance ;  and  for  whom  the  lowest  rung 
in  the  ladder  of  culture  is  a  giddy  elevation. 
Such  work  has  indeed  its  reward,  but  never  ex- 
ceeding great ;  and  it  has  more  discouragements 
and  difficulties  than  one  cares  to  reckon  up. 

To  people  who  know  their  Ruskin  only  as  the 
elegant  theorist  of  art,  sentimental  and  egotistic, 
as  they  will  have  it,  there  must  be  something 
strange,  almost  irreconcilable,  in  his  devotion, 
week  after  week  and  year  after  year,  to  such  a 
labor.  Still  more  must  it  astonish  them  to  find 
the  mystic  author  of  the  "  Blessed  Damozel,"  the 
passionate  painter  of  the  Venus  Verticordia, 
working  by  Ruskin's  side  in  this  rough  nawy- 
labor  of  philanthropy. 

It  was  early  in  1854  that  a  drawing  by  D.  G. 
Rossetti  was  sent  to  Mr.  Ruskin  by  a  friend  of 
the  painter's.  The  critic  already  knew  Millais 
and  Hunt  personally,  but  not  Rossetti.  He  had 
scarcely  noticed  his  works,  as  they  were  not  ex- 
hibited at  the  Academy.  Mr.  Ruskin  was  just 
bringing  out  the  Edinburgh  Lectures  in  book 
form,  and  busy  with  the  defense  of  the  Pre-Rapha- 


THE   WORKING   MENS    COLLEGE.  215 

elites.  He  wrote  kindly,  signing  himself  "  yours 
respectfully,"  which  amused  the  young  painter. 
He  made  acquaintance,  and  in  the  appendix  to 
his  book  placed  Rossetti's  name  with  those  of 
Millais  and  Hunt,  especially  praising  the  imagi- 
native power,  which  he  could  not  fail  to  observe 
at  once. 

He  did  more  than  that.  He  agreed  to  buy,  up 
to  a  certain  sum  every  year,  any  drawings  that 
Rossetti  brought  him,  at  their  market  price ;  and 
his  standard  of  money  value  for  works  of  art  has 
never  been  niggardly.  This  sort  of  help,  the  en- 
couragement to  work,  is  exactly  what  makes  prog- 
ress possible  to  a  young  and  independent  artist ; 
it  is  better  for  him  than  fortuitous  exhibition 
triumphs  —  much  better  than  the  hack-work  which 
many  have  to  undertake,  to  eke  out  their  liveli- 
hood. And  the  mere  fact  of  being  bought  by  the 
eminent  art  critic  was  enough  to  encourage  others. 
Rossetti  was  not  a  skillful  economist,  and  it  was 
long  before  his  earnings  were  sufficient  to  enable 
him  to  marry,  and,  as  they  call  it,  settle  in  life ;  for 
which  reason  the  judicious  help  he  thus  received 
was  all  the  more  valuable. 

The  artist  and  the  critic  became  close  friends. 
In  1 86 1  Rossetti  drew  a  chalk  portrait  of  Mr. 
Ruskin,  afterwards  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Po- 
cock,  of  Brighton.  Rossetti  was  often  at  Den- 
mark Hill,  and  Ruskin  used  to  visit  the  studio  in 
Chatham  Place,  near  Blackfriars  Bridge,  where  he 
met  Miss  Siddall,  Rossetti's  pupil  and  model,  and 


2l6      THE    LIFE   AND  WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

afterwards  wife,  and  praised  her  so  that  it  did  her 
lover's  heart  good. 

It  was  there,  too,  that  he  first  met  Mr.  Burne- 
Jones,  in  1856,  and  Mr.  William  Morris  and  other 
famous  men  of  the  school.  There  were  still  other 
ways  in  which  he  helped.  In  1856  "  The  Burden 
of  Nineveh  "  was  published  anonymously  in  the 
"  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine."  Ruskin  liked 
it,  and  wrote  to  Rossetti  to  know  who  was  the 
author,  perhaps  not  without  a  suspicion  that  he 
was  addressing  the  man  who  could  tell  him. 
Though  his  Scotch  morality  did  not  approve  of 
some  phases  of  Rossetti's  work,  for  instance 
"Jenny,"  —  at  which  many  readers  may  not  be 
surprised,  —  he  tried  to  get  Thackeray,  by  this 
time  a  friend  of  his,  to  print  Rossetti's  poems  in 
the  "  Cornhill ;  "  but  in  vain.  And  as  editors  re- 
fused them,  he  made  himself  responsible  for  the 
cost  of  their  publication,  both  in  the  case  of 
the  "  Early  Italian  Poets,"  I  believe,  and  also  in 
the  case  of  the  first  edition  of  the  "  Poems  "  in 
1868.  It  was  only  afterwards,  when  Rossetti  gave 
way  to  chloral  and  misanthropy,  and  became  in- 
accessible to  nearly  all  his  old  friends,  that  he 
and  Mr.  Ruskin  drifted  apart. 

So  in  the  Christmas  vacation  of  1854,  this  new 
recruit  was  enlisted,  and  during  Lent  term,  1855, 
the  three  teachers  worked  together  every  Thurs- 
day evening.  With  the  beginning  of  the  third 
term,  March  29th,  the  increase  of  the  class  made 
it  more  convenient  to  divide  their  forces.     Ros- 


THE   WORKING   MEN'S    COLLEGE.  21 J 

setti  thenceforward  taught  the  figure  on  another 
night  of  the  week ;  while  the  elementary  and 
landscape  class  continued  to  meet  on  Thursdays 
under  Ruskin  and  Lowes  Dickinson.  In  1856 
the  elementary  and  landscape  class  was  further 
divided,  Mr.  Dickinson  taking  Tuesday  evenings, 
and  Mr.  Ruskin  continuing  the  Thursday  class, 
with  the  help  of  Mr.  William  Ward  as  under- 
master.  There  were  four  terms  in  the  Working 
Men's  College  year,  the  only  vacation,  except  for 
the  fortnight  at  Christmas,  being  from  the  begin- 
ning of  August  to  the  end  of  October.  Mr. 
Ruskin  did  not  always  attend  throughout  the 
summer  term,  though  sometimes  his  class  came 
down  to  him  into  the  country  to  sketch.  He 
kept  up  the  work  without  other  intermission  until 
May,  1858,  after  which  the  completion  of  "  Modern 
Painters  "  and  many  lecture  engagements  took 
him  away  for  a  time.  In  the  spring  of  i860  he 
was  back  at  his  old  post  for  a  term ;  but  after 
that  he  discontinued  regular  attendance,  and  went 
to  the  Working  Men's  College  only  at  intervals, 
to  give  addresses  or  informal  lectures  to  students 
and  friends.  On  such  occasions  "  the  drawing- 
room,"  or  first  floor  of  the  house  in  which  the 
college  was  held,  would  be  always  crowded,  with 
an  audience  who  heard  the  lecturer  at  his  best ; 
speaking  freely  among  friends,  out  of  a  full  trea- 
sure-house, "  things  new  and  old,"  —  the  accounts 
of  recent  travel,  lately  discovered  glories  of  art, 
and  the  growing  burden  of  the  prophecy  that  in 


2l8      THE    LIFE   AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

those  years  was  beginning  to  take  more  definite 
shape  in  his  mind. 

As  a  teacher,  Mr.  Ruskin  was  most  engaging. 
What  is  called  "  personal  magnetism,"  the  attrac- 
tion of  a  powerful  mind  and  intensely  sympathetic 
manner,  he  exercised  to  the  highest  degree  over 
all  with  whom  he  came  into  personal  contact.  His 
enthusiasm  for  the  subject  in  hand,  his  obvious 
devotion  to  his  work,  his  unselfish  readiness  to 
take  any  trouble  over  it,  his  extreme  considera- 
tion for  the  feelings  of  any  man,  woman,  or  child, 
high  or  low,  clever  or  stupid,  in  his  company,  his 
vivacity  and  humor  and  imagination,  all  spent,  as 
the  pupil  proudly  felt,  "  on  little  me,"  made  him 
simply  adored.  But  there  was  this  drawback,  — 
that  he  imputed  to  his  pupils,  in  many  cases, 
more  talent  than  they  really  had ;  he  thought  that 
because  they  could  make  great  progress  with  his 
help,  they  might  now  and  then  be  trusted  to  walk 
alone ;  and  they,  too,  were  sometimes  lifted  up 
with  pride  "  in  little  me  "  that  went  before  a  fall ; 
and  then  there  was  disappointment.  He  often 
"  talked  over  their  heads,"  and  thought  they  were 
following  him,  when  they  were  being  led  into 
misconceptions  of  his  aims  and  their  powers: 
for  words,  to  him,  meant  things  and  ideas  which 
only  a  fully  educated  mind  was  likely  to  grasp. 

His  object  in  the  work,  as  he  said  before  the 
Royal  Commission  on  National  Institutions,  was 
not  to  make  artists,  but  to  make  the  workmen 
better  men,  to  develop  their  powers  and  feelings, 


THE   WORKING    MENS    COLLEGE.  219 

—  to  educate  them,  in  short.  And,  in  cases  where 
ingrained  self-conceit  did  not  make  it  impossible, 
he  did  what  he  intended.  He  always  has  urged 
young  people  intending  to  study  art  as  a  profes- 
sion to  enter  the  Academy  Schools,  as  Turner 
and  the  Pre-Raphaelites  did,  or  to  take  up  what- 
ever other  serious  course  of  practical  discipline 
was  open  to  them.  But  he  held  very  strongly 
that  everybody  could  learn  drawing,  that  their 
eyes  could  be  sharpened  and  their  hands  steadied, 
that  they  could  be  taught  to  appreciate  the  great 
works  of  nature  and  of  art,  without  wanting  to 
make  pictures  and  to  exhibit  and  sell  them. 

It  was  with  this  intention  that  he  wrote  the 
"  Elements  of  Drawing  "  in  1856,  supplemented  by 
the  "  Elements  of  Perspective"  in  1859,  which, 
though  out  of  chronological  order,  may  be  noticed 
here  as  an  outcome  of  his  teaching,  and  a  type  of 
it.  The  "  Elements  of  Drawing "  are  taught  in 
three  letters  addressed  to  the  general  amateur ; 
the  first  devoted  to  practice  with  the  point  and 
brush,  suggesting  various  ways  of  making  such 
drudgery  interesting.  The  methods  of  Rem- 
brandt's etching  and  Durer's  woodcut  and  Tur- 
ner's mezzotint  are  illustrated,  and  applied  to 
naturalistic  landscape.  In  the  next  letter  hints 
are  given  for  sketching  from  nature,  especially 
showing  the  importance  of  matching  colors,  as 
students  are  now  taught  to  do  in  the  better  schools. 
For  the  rest,  the  methods  of  old  William  Hunt 
are  followed,  in  the  use  of  body-color  and  broken 


2  20       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

tints.  Finally,  the  laws  of  color  and  composition 
are  analyzed,  not  for  the  sake  of  teaching  how 
to  color  and  how  to  compose,  but,  as  he  says 
again  and  again,  to  lead  to  greater  appreciation  of 
good  color  and  good  composition  in  the  works  of 
the  masters. 

In  spite  of  the  repeated  statement  that  the  book 
was  not  intended  to  show  a  short  cut  to  becoming 
an  artist,  it  has  often  been  misused  and  misunder- 
stood ;  so  much  so,  that  after  it  had  proved  its 
popularity  by  a  sale  of  8,000,  the  author  let  it  go 
out  of  print,  intending  to  supersede  it  with  a 
more  carefully  stated  code  of  directions.  But  the 
new  work,  the  "  Laws  of  Fesole,"  was  never  fin- 
ished ;  and  meanwhile  the  "  Elements  of  Draw- 
ing" remains,  if  not  a  standard  text-book  of  art, 
a  model  of  method,  a  type  of  object-lessons,  of 
the  greatest  value  to  those  who  wish  to  substitute 
a  more  natural  and  more  truly  educational 
method  for  the  old  rigid  learning  by  rote  and 
routine. 

The  illustrations  for  the  book  were  characteris- 
tic sketches  by  the  author,  beautifully  cut  by  his 
pupil,  W.  H.  Hooper,  who  was  one  of  a  band  of 
engravers  and  copyists  formed  by  these  classes  at 
the  Working  Men's  College.  In  spite  of  the  in- 
tention not  to  make  artists  by  his  teaching,  Mr. 
Ruskin  could  not  prevent  some  of  his  pupils  from 
taking  up  art  as  a  profession ;  and  those  who  did 
became,  in  their  way,  first-rate  men.  George 
Allen  as  a  mezzotint  engraver,  Arthur  Burgess  as 


THE    WORKING    MENS    COLLEGE.  22  1 

a  draughtsman  and  woodcutter,  John  Bunney  as 
a  painter  of  architectural  detail,  E.  Cooke  as  a 
teacher,  William  Ward  as  a  facsimile  copyist,  have 
all  done  work  whose  value  deserves  acknowledg- 
ment, all  the  more  because  it  has  not  aimed  at 
popular  effect,  but  at  the  severe  standard  of  the 
greater  schools.  But  these  men  were  only  the 
side  issue  of  the  Working  Men's  College  enter- 
prise. Its  real  result  was  in  the  proof  that  the 
laboring  classes  could  be  interested  in  art;  that 
the  capacity  shown  by  the  Gothic  workman  had 
not  entirely  died  out  of  the  nation,  in  spite  of  the 
interregnum,  for  a  full  century,  of  manufacture ; 
and  the  experience  led  Mr.  Ruskin  forward  to 
wider  views  on  the  nature  of  arts  and  the  duties 
of  philanthropic  effort  and  social  economy. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MODERN    PAINTERS    CONTINUED. 
(1855-1856.) 

"  Nor  feared  to  follow,  in  the  offense 
Of  false  opinion,  his  own  sense 
Of  justice  unsubdued." 

Robert,  Lord  Lytton. 

It  was  in  the  year  1855  tnat  Mr.  Ruskin  first 
published  "  Notes  on  the  Royal  Academy  and 
other  Exhibitions."  He  had  been  so  often  called 
upon  to  write  his  opinion  upon  Pre-Raphaelite 
pictures,  either  privately  or  to  the  newspapers,  or 
to  mark  his  friends'  catalogues,  that  he  found  at 
last  less  trouble  in  printing  his  notes  once  for  all. 
The  new  plan  was  immediately  popular;  three 
editions  of  the  pamphlet  were  called  for  between 
June  1st  and  July  1st.  Next  year  he  repeated  the 
"  Notes,"  and  six  editions  were  sold  ;  which  indi- 
cated a  great  success  in  those  times,  when  litera- 
ture was  not  spread  broadcast  to  the  millions,  as 
it  is  nowadays,  and  when  the  reading  public  was 
comparatively  limited. 

In  spite  of  a  dissentient  voice  here  and  there, 
Mr.  Ruskin  was  really  by  that  time  recognized  as 
the  leading  authority  upon  taste  in  painting,  and 
he  was  trusted  by  a  great  section  of  the  public, 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONTINUED.  223 

who  had  not  failed  to  notice  how  completely  he 
and  his  friends  were  winning  the  day.  The  proof 
of  it  was  in  the  fact  that  they  were  being  imitated 
on  all  sides ;  Ruskinism  in  writing  and  Pre-Ra- 
phaelitism  in  painting  were  becoming  fashionable. 
Many  an  artist,  who  had  abused  the  new-fangled 
style  three  years  ago,  now  did  his  best  to  learn  the 
trick  of  it  and  share  the  success.  It  seemed  easy : 
you  had  only  to  exaggerate  the  color  and  em- 
phasize the  detail,  people  thought,  and  you  could 
"  do  a  Millais ;  "  and  if  Millais  sold,  why  should  n't 
they?  And  thus  a  great  mass  of  imitative  rub- 
bish was  produced,  entirely  wanting  in  the  fresh- 
ness of  feeling  and  sincerity  of  conception  which 
were  the  real  virtues  of  the  school. 

But  at  the  same  time  the  movement  gave  rise 
to  a  new  method  of  landscape-painting,  which  was 
very  much  to  Mr.  Ruskin's  mind :  not  based  on 
Turner,  and  therefore  not  secured  from  the  fail- 
ure that  all  experiments  risk ;  and  yet  safe  in  so 
far  as  it  kept  to  honest  study  of  nature.  So  that, 
beside  the  Pre-Raphaelites  proper,  with  their 
poetic  figure-pieces,  the  "  Notes  on  the  Academy  " 
had  to  keep  watch  over  the  birth  of  the  naturalist- 
landscape  school,  a  group  of  painters  who  threw 
overboard  the  traditions  of  Turner  and  Prout,  and 
Constable  and  Harding,  and  the  rest,  just  as  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brethren  threw  over  the  Academ- 
ical masters.  For  such  men  their  study  was  their 
picture  ;  they  devised  tents  and  huts  in  wild  glens 
and  upon  waste  moors,  and  spent  weeks  in  elabo- 


2  24       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

rating  their  details  directly  from  nature,  instead  of 
painting  at  home  from  sketches  on  the  spot. 

This  was  the  fulfillment  of  Mr.  Ruskin's  advice 
to  young  artists;  and  so  far  as  young  artists 
worked  in  this  way,  for  purposes  of  study,  he 
encouraged  them.  But  he  did  not  fail  to  point 
out  that  this  was  not  all  that  could  be  required 
of  them.  Even  such  a  work  as  Brett's  Val 
d'  Aosta,  marvelous  as  it  was  in  observation  and 
finish,  was  only  the  beginning  of  a  new  era,  not 
its  consummation.  It  was  not  the  painting  of  de- 
tail that  could  make  a  great  artist ;  but  the  know- 
ledge of  it,  and  the  masterly  use  of  such  knowledge. 
A  great  landscapist  would  know  the  facts  and 
effects  of  nature,  just  as  Tintoret  knew  the  form 
of  the  human  figure;  and  he  would  treat  them 
with  the  same  freedom,  as  the  means  of  express- 
ing great  ideas,  of  affording  noble  grounds  for 
noble  emotion,  which,  as  Mr.  R'uskin  had  been 
writing  at  Vevey  in  1854,  was  poetry.  Mean- 
while the  public  and  the  critic  ought  to  become 
familiar  with  the  aspects  of  nature,  in  order  to 
recognize  the  difference  between  the  true  poetry 
of  painting,  and  the  mere  empty  sentimentalism 
which  was  only  the  rant  and  bombast  of  landscape 
art. 

With  such  feelings  as  these  he  wrote  the 
third  and  fourth  volumes  of  "  Modern  Painters," 
stopped  for  a  time  by  the  unhappy  events  of  the 
autumn  of  1854,  but  next  year  resumed,  and  after- 
wards interrupted  only  by  a  recurrence  of  his  old 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONTINUED.  225 

cough,  brought  on  by  the  exceptionally  cold  sum- 
mer of  1855.  He  went  down  to  Tunbridge  Wells, 
where  his  cousin,  William  Richardson  of  Perth, 
was  practicing  as  a  doctor ;  and  it  was  not  long 
before  the  cough  gave  way  to  treatment,  and  he 
was  as  busy  as  ever.  About  October  of  that  year 
he  wrote  to  Carlyle  as  follows,  in  a  letter  printed 
by  Professor  C.  E.  Norton,  conveniently  summing 
up  his  year  :  — 

"  Not  that  I  have  not  been  busy  —  and  very 
busy,  too.  I  have  written,  since  May,  good  six 
hundred  pages,  had  them  rewritten,  cut  up,  cor- 
rected, and  got  fairly  ready  for  press  —  and  am 
going  to  press  with  the  first  of  them  on  Gunpow- 
der Plot  day,  with  a  great  hope  of  disturbing  the 
Public  Peace  in  various  directions.  Also,  I  have 
prepared  above  thirty  drawings  for  engravers  this 
year,  retouched  the  engravings  (generally  the 
worst  part  of  the  business),  and  etched  some  on 
steel  myself.  In  the  course  of  the  six  hundred 
pages  I  have  had  to  make  various  remarks  on 
German  Metaphysics,  on  Poetry,  Political  Econ- 
omy, Cookery,  Music,  Geology,  Dress,  Agricul- 
ture, Horticulture,  and  Navigation,1  all  of  which 
subjects  I  have  had  to  '  read  up '  accordingly,  and 
this  takes  time.  Moreover,  I  have  had  my  class 
of  workmen  out  sketching  every  week  in  the  fields 
during   the   summer;    and   have   been   studying 

1  Most  of  these  subjects  will  be  easily  recognized  in  Modern 
Painters,  Vols.  III.  and  IV.  The  "  Navigation  "  refers  to  the //ar- 
dors of  England. 


226      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

Spanish  proverbs  with  my  father's  partner,  who 
came  over  from  Spain  to  see  the  Great  Exhibition. 
I  have  also  designed  and  drawn  a  window  for 
the  Museum  at  Oxford ;  and  have  every  now  and 
then  had  to  look  over  a  parcel  of  five  or  six  new 
designs  for  fronts  and  backs  to  the  said  Museum. 

"  During  my  above-mentioned  studies  of  horti- 
culture I  became  dissatisfied  with  the  Linnaean, 
Jussieuan,  and  Everybody-elseian  arrangement  of 
plants,  and  have  accordingly  arranged  a  system  of 
my  own ;  and  unbound  my  botanical  book,  and 
rebound  it  in  brighter  green,  with  all  the  pages 
through-other,  and  backside  foremost  —  so  as  to 
cut  off  all  the  old  paging  numerals ;  and  am  now 
printing  my  new  arrangement  in  a  legible  man- 
ner, on  interleaved  foolscap.  I  consider  this 
arrangement  one  of  my  great  achievements  of  the 
year.  My  studies  of  political  economy  have  in- 
duced me  to  think  also  that  nobody  knows  any- 
thing about  that ;  and  I  am  at  present  engaged  in 
an  investigation,  on  independent  principles,  of  the 
natures  of  Money,  Rent,  and  Taxes,  in  an  abstract 
form,  which  sometimes  keeps  me  awake  all  night. 
My  studies  of  German  metaphysics  have  also  in- 
duced me  to  think  that  the  Germans  don't  know 
anything  about  them ;  and  to  engage  in  a  serious 
inquiry  into  the  meaning  of  Bunsen's  great  sen- 
tence in  the  beginning  of  the  second  volume  of 
the  '  Hippolytus,'  about  the  Finite  realization  of 
Infinity ;  which  has  given  me  some  trouble. 

"  The   course   of    my   studies    of    Navigation 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONTINUED.  227 

necessitated  my  going  to  Deal  to  look  at  the 
Deal  boats ;  and  those  of  Geology  to  rearrange 
all  my  minerals  (and  wash  a  good  many,  which, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  I  found  wanted  it).  I  have  also 
several  pupils,  far  and  near,  in  the  art  of  illumina- 
tion :  an  American  young  lady  to  direct  in  the 
study  of  landscape  painting,  and  a  Yorkshire 
young  lady  to  direct  in  the  purchase  of  Turners, 
—  and  various  little  by  things  besides.  But  I  am 
coming  to  see  you." 

The  tone  of  humorous  exaggeration  of  his  dis- 
coveries and  occupations  was  very  characteristic 
of  Mr.  Ruskin,  and  it  was  likely  to  be  brought  out 
all  the  more  when  writing  to  another  humorist 
like  Carlyle.  But  he  was  then  growing  into  the 
habit  of  leaving  the  matter  in  hand,  as  he  has 
often  done  since,  to  follow  side  issues,  and  to  take 
up  new  studies  with  a  hasty  and  divided  attention ; 
the  result  of  which  was  seen  in  his  sub-title  for  the 
third  volume  of  "  Modern  Painters  "  —  "  Of  Many 
Things :  "  which  amused  his  readers  not  a  little. 
But  that  he  still  had  time  for  his  friends  is  seen 
in  the  account  of  a  visit  to  Denmark  Hill,  written 
this  year  by  James  Smetham,  an  artist  who  at  one 
time  promised  to  do  great  things,  but  died  before 
he  redeemed  the  promise.  He  was  at  any  rate 
a  singularly  charming  and  interesting  man,  ad- 
mired by  Mr.  Ruskin  for  his  personal  character, 
and  known  now  by  the  volume  of  his  letters 
recently  published.  He  wrote :  "  I  walked  there 
through   the   wintry   weather,  and  got  in  about 


2  28       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

dusk.  One  or  two  gossiping  details  will  interest 
you  before  I  give  you  what  I  care  for ;  and  so  I 
will  tell  you  that  he  has  a  large  house  with  a  lodge, 
and  a  valet  and  footman  and  coachman,  and  grand 
rooms  glittering  with  pictures,  chiefly  Turner's, 
and  that  his  father  and  mother  live  with  him,  or 
he  with  them.  His  father  is  a  fine  old  gentleman, 
who  has  a  lot  of  bushy  gray  hair,  and  eyebrows 
sticking  up  all  rough  and  knowing,  with  a  com- 
fortable way  of  coming  up  to  you  with  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  and  making  you  comfortable,  and 
saying,  in  answer  to  your  remark,  that  '  John's ' 
prose  works  are  pretty  good.  His  mother  is  a 
ruddy,  dignified,  richly-dressed  old  gentlewoman 
of  seventy-five,  who  knows  Chamonix  better  than 
Camberwell ;  evidently  a  good  old  lady,  with  the 
1  Christian  Treasury '  tossing  about  on  the  table. 
She  puts  '  John  '  down,  and  holds  her  own  opin- 
ions, and  flatly  contradicts  him ;  and  he  receives 
all  her  opinions  with  a  soft  reverence  and  gentle- 
ness that  is  pleasant  to  witness."  I  will  interrupt 
Mr.  Smetham  to  remark,  that  this  respect  for  his 
mother  was  one  of  the  things  that  visitors  always 
noticed  as  characteristic  of  Mr.  Ruskin ;  and  the 
intimate  friends  of  the  family  know  that  it  was 
something  even  more  than  respect,  at  all  times 
and  under  all  circumstances. 

"  I  wish  I  could  reproduce  a  good  impression 
of  '  John '  for  you,  to  give  you  the  notion  of  his 
'  perfect  gentleness  and  lowlihood.'  He  certainly 
bursts  out  with  a  remark,  and  in  a  contradictious 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONTINUED.  229 

way,  but  only  because  he  believes  it,  with  no  air 
of  dogmatism  or  conceit.  He  is  different  at  home 
from  that  which  he  is  in  a  lecture  before  a  mixed 
audience,  and  there  is  a  spiritual  sweetness  in  the 
half-timid  expression  of  his  eyes ;  and  in  bowing 
to  you,  as  in .  taking  wine,  with  (if  I  heard  aright) 
'  I  drink  to  thee,'  he  had  a  look  that  has  followed 
me,  a  look  bordering  on  tearful. 

"  He  spent  some  time  in  this  way.  Unhanging 
a  Turner  from  the  wall  of  a  distant  room,  he 
brought  it  to  the  table  and  put  it  in  my  hands ; 
then  we  talked ;  then  he  went  up  into  his  study 
to  fetch  down  some  illustrative  print  or  drawing ; 
in  one  case  a  literal  view  which  he  had  traveled 
fifty  miles  to  make,  in  order  to  compare  with  the 
picture.  And  so  he  kept  on  gliding  all  over  the 
house,  hanging  and  unhanging,  and  stopping  a 
few  minutes  to  talk." 

But  it  was  not  only  from  his  mother  that  he 
could  brook  contradiction,  and  not  only  in  con- 
versation that  he  showed  himself  —  contrary  to 
the  general  opinion  of  him  —  amenable  to  correc- 
tion, when  it  came  from  persons  whom  he  could 
respect.  As  a  truth-seeker,  how  could  he  be 
otherwise  ?  And  yet  there  were  many  with  whom 
he  had  to  deal  who  did  not  look  at  things  in  his 
light ;  who  took  his  criticism  as  personal  attack, 
and  resented  it  with  a  bitterness  it  did  not  deserve. 
There  is  a  story  told  (but  not  by  himself)  about 
one  of  the  "  Notes  on  the  Academy,"  which  he 
was  then  publishing  —  how  he  wrote  to  an  artist 


23O      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

therein  mentioned  that  he  regretted  he  could  not 
speak  more  favorably  of  his  picture,  but  he  hoped 
it  would  make  no  difference  in  their  friendship. 
The  artist  replied  (so  they  say)  in  these  terms : 
"  Dear  Ruskin,  —  Next  time  I  meet  you,  I  shall 
knock  you  down ;  but  I  hope  it  will  make  no  dif- 
ference in  our  friendship."  "Damn  the  fellow! 
why  does  n't  he  stick  up  for  his  friends  ?  "  said 
another  disappointed  acquaintance.  Perhaps  Mr. 
Ruskin,  secure  in  his  "  house  with  a  lodge,  and  a 
valet  and  footman  and  coachman,"  hardly  realized 
that  a  cold  word  from  his  pen  sometimes  meant 
the  failure  of  an  important  Academy  picture,  and 
serious  loss  of  income  —  that  there  was  bitter 
truth  underlying  "  Punch's "  complaint  of  the 
R.  A.:  — 

**  I  paints  and  paints, 
Hears  no  complaints, 

And  sells  before  I  'm  dry ; 
Till  savage  Ruskin 
Sticks  his  tusk  in, 

And  nobody  will  buy." 

Still,  as  a  public  man,  it  was  his  duty  to  "  be 
just,  and  fear  not ;  "  and,  hard  as  it  is  to  be  just, 
when  one  looks  over  those  "  Notes  on  the  Acad- 
emy "  at  this  safe  distance  of  time,  one  is  sur- 
prised to  see  with  what  shrewdness  he  put  his 
finger  upon  the  weak  points  of  the  various  artists, 
and  no  less  upon  their  strong  points ;  how  many 
of  the  men  he  praised  as  beginners  have  since 
risen  to  eminence,  how  many  he  blamed  who  have 
sunk  from  a  specious  popularity  into   oblivion. 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONTINUED.  23 1 

Contrast  his  career  as  a  critic  with  that  of  other 
well-known  men,  the  Jeffreys  and  the  Giffords,  not 
to  mention  writers  of  a  later  date  ;  and  note  that 
his  error  has  been  always  to  encourage  too  freely, 
not  to  discourage  hastily.  The  men  who  lay  their 
failure  to  his  account  have  been  the  weaklings 
whom  he  has  urged  to  attempts  beyond  their 
powers,  with  kindly  support,  misconstrued  into  a 
prophecy  of  success.  No  article  of  his  has  snuffed 
out  a  rising  Keats,  or  driven  a  young  Chatterton 
to  suicide.  And  he  has  never  stabbed  in  the  dark. 
"  Tout  honnete  homme  doit  avouer  les  livres  qu'il 
publie,"  says  his  prototype,  Rousseau :  and  Mr. 
Ruskin,  after  publishing  his  first  juvenile  essays 
under  a  transparent  pseudonym,  has  always  had 
the  courage  of  his  opinions  and  taken  the  conse- 
quences of  his  criticisms.  I  note  that  most  of  the 
attacks  on  him  have  been  unsigned. 

In  these  volumes  of  "  Modern  Painters,"  he 
had  to  discuss  the  Mediaeval  and  Renaissance 
spirit  in  its  relation  to  art,  and  to  illustrate  from 
Browning's  poetry,  "  unerring  in  every  sentence 
he  writes  of  the  Middle  Ages,  always  vital  and 
right  and  profound ;  so  that  in  the  matter  of  art 
there  is  hardly  a  principle  connected  with  the 
mediaeval  temper  that  he  has  not  struck  upon  in 
those  seemingly  careless  and  too  rugged  lines  of 
his."  This  was  written  twenty-five  years  before 
the  Browning  Society  was  heard  of,  and  at  a  time 
when  the  style  of  Browning  was  an  offense  to 
most  people.     To  Mr.  Ruskin,  also,  it  had  been 


232       THE    LIFE   AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

something  of  a  puzzle ;  and  he  wrote  to  the  poet, 
asking  him  to  explain  himself ;  which  the  poet 
accordingly  did,  in  a  letter  too  interesting  to  re- 
main imprinted,  showing  as  it  does  the  candid 
intercourse  of  two  such  different  minds. 

Paris,  December  10,  1855. 
My  dear  Ruskin, — for  so  you  let  me  begin,  with  the 
honest  friendliness  that  befits,  —  You  never  were  more  in  the 
wrong  than  when  you  professed  to  say  "your  unpleasant 
things "  to  me.  This  is  pleasant  and  proper  at  all  points, 
over-liberal  of  praise  here  and  there,  kindly  and  sympathetic 
everywhere,  and  with  enough  of  yourself  in  even  —  what  I 
fancy  —  the  misjudging,  to  make  the  whole  letter  precious  in- 
deed. I  wanted  to  thank  you  thus  much  at  once,  —  that  is, 
when  the  letter  reached  me ;  but  the  strife  of  lodging-hunting 
was  too  sore,  and  only  now  that  I  can  sit  down  for  a  minute 
without  self-reproach  do  I  allow  my  thoughts  to  let  go  south- 
aspects,  warm  bedrooms,  and  the  like,  and  begin  as  you  see. 
For  the  deepnesses  you  think  you  discern, — may  they  be 
more  than  mere  blacknesses !  For  the  hopes  you  entertain 
of  what  may  come  of  subsequent  readings,  —  all  success  to 
them  !  For  your  bewilderment  more  especially  noted  —  how 
shall  I  help  that?  We  don't  read  poetry  the  same  way,  by 
the  same  law  ;  it  is  too  clear.  I  cannot  begin  writing  poetry 
till  my  imaginary  reader  has  conceded  licenses  to  me  which 
you  demur  at  altogether.  I  know  that  I  don't  make  out  my 
conception  by  my  language ;  all  poetry  being  a  putting  the 
infinite  within  the  finite.  You  would  have  me  paint  it  all  plain 
out,  which  can't  be  ;  but  by  various  artifices  I  try  to  make  shift 
with  touches  and  bits  of  outlines  which  succeed  if  they  bear 
the  conception  from  me  to  you.  You  ought,  I  think,  to  keep 
pace  with  the  thought  tripping  from  ledge  to  ledge  of  my 
"  glaciers,"  as  you  call  them ;  not  stand  poking  your  alpen- 
stock into  the  holes  and  demonstrating  that  no  foot  could 
have  stood  there  ;  suppose  it  sprang  over  there  ?     In  prose 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONTINUED.  233 

you  may  criticise  so  —  because  that  is  the  absolute  represen- 
tation of  portions  of  truth,  what  chronicling  is  to  history  — 
but  in  asking  for  more  ultimates  you  must  accept  less  mediates, 
nor  expect  that  a  Druid  stone-circle  will  be  traced  for  you 
with  as  few  breaks  to  the  eye  as  the  North  Crescent  and 
South  Crescent  that  go  together  so  cleverly  in  many  a  suburb. 
Why,  you  look  at  my  little  song  as  if  it  were  Hobbs'  or 
Nobbs'  lease  of  his  house,  or  testament  of  his  devisings, 
wherein,  I  grant  you,  not  a  "then  and  there,"  "to  him  and  his 
heirs,"  "to  have  and  to  hold,"  and  so  on,  would  be  super- 
fluous ;  and  so  you  begin  :  "  Stand  still,  —  why  ?  "  !  For  the 
reason  indicated  in  the  verse,  to  be  sure  —  to  let  me  draw  him 
—  and  because  he  is  at  present  going  his  way,  and  fancying 
nobody  notices  him,  —  and  moreover,  "  going  on  "  (as  we  say) 
against  the  injustice  of  that,  —  and  lastly,  inasmuch  as  one 
night  he  '11  fail  us,  as  a  star  is  apt  to  drop  out  of  heaven,  in 
authentic  astronomic  records,  and  I  want  to  make  the  most  of 
my  time.  So  much  may  be  in  "  stand  still."  And  how  much 
more  was  (for  instance)  in  that  "  stay !  "  of  Samuel's  (I.  xv. 
16).  So  could  I  twit  you  through  the  whole  series  of  your 
objurgations,  but  the  declaring  my  own  notion  of  the  law  on 
the  subject  will  do.  And  why,  —  I  prithee,  friend  and  fellow- 
student,  —  why,  having  told  the  Poet  what  you  read,  —  may  I 
not  turn  to  the  bystanders,  and  tell  them  a  bit  of  my  own 
mind  about  their  own  stupid  thanklessness  and  mistaking  ? 
Is  the  jump  too  much  there  ?  The  whole  is  all  but  a  simul- 
taneous feeling  with  me. 

The  other  hard  measure  you  deal  me  I  won't  bear  —  about 
my  requiring  you  to  pronounce  words  short  and  long,  exactly 
as  I  like.  Nay,  but  exactly  as  the  language  likes,  in  this  case. 
Fold-skirts  not  a  trochee  ?  A  spondee  possible  in  English  ? 
Two  of  the  "  longest  monosyllables  "  continuing  to  be  each 
of  the  old  length  when  in  junction?  Sentence:  let  the  de- 
linquent be  forced  to  supply  the  stone-cutter  with  a  thou- 
sand companions  to  "Affliction  sore  —  long  time  he  bore," 

1  Referring  to  the  poem  "  Stand  still,  true  poet  that  you  are," 
with  the  line  "  And  Hobbs,  Nobbs,  Stokes,  and  Nokes  combine." 


234      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

after  the  fashion  of  "He  lost  his  life  —  by  a  pen-knife," 
"  He  turned  to  clay  —  last  Good  Friday,"  "  Departed  hence 

—  nor  owed  six-pence,"  and  so  on  —  so  would  pronounce  a 
jury  accustomed  from  the  nipple  to  say  lord  and  landlord, 
bridge  and  Cambridge,  Gog  and  Magog,  man  and  woman, 
house  and  workhouse,  coal  and  charcoal,  cloth  and  broad- 
cloth, skirts  and  fold-skirts,  more  and  once  more,  —  in  short ! 
Once  more  I  prayed  !  —  is  the  confession  of  a  self-searching 
professor  !     "  I  stand  here  for  law !  " 

The  last  charge  I  cannot  answer,  for  you  may  be  right  in 
preferring  it,  however  unwitting  I  am  of  the  fact.  I  may 
put  Robert  Browning  into  Pippa  and  other  men  and  maids. 
If  so,  peccavi :  but  I  don't  see  myself  in  them,  at  all  events. 

Do  you  think  poetry  was  ever  generally  understood  —  or 
can  be  ?  Is  the  business  of  it  to  tell  people  what  they  know 
already,  as  they  know  it,  and  so  precisely  that  they  shall  be 
able  to  cry  out —  "  Here  you  should  supply  this  —  that,  you 
evidently  pass  over,  and  I  '11  help  you  from  my  own  stock  "  ? 
It  is  all  teaching,  on  the  contrary,  and  the  people  hate  to  be 
taught.  They  say  otherwise,  —  make  foolish  fables  about 
Orpheus  enchanting  stocks  and  stones,  poets  standing  up  and 
being  worshiped,  —  all  nonsense  and  impossible  dreaming. 
A  poet's  affair  is  with  God,  to  whom  he  is  accountable,  and 
of  whom  is  his  reward  :  look  elsewhere,  and  you  find  misery 
enough.  Do  you  believe  people  understand  Hamlet  ?  The 
last  time  I  saw  it  acted,  the  heartiest  applause  of  the  night 
went  to  a  little  by-play  of  the  actor's  own  —  who,  to  simulate 
madness  in  a  hurry,  plucked  forth  his  handkerchief  and 
flourished  it  hither  and  thither :  certainly  a  third  of  the  play, 
with  no  end  of  noble  things,  had  been  (as  from  time  im- 
memorial) suppressed,  with  the  auditory's  amplest  acquies- 
cence and  benediction.     Are  these  wasted,  therefore  ?     No 

—  they  act  upon  a  very  few,  who  react  upon  the  rest :  as 
Goldsmith  says,  "some  lords,  my  acquaintance,  that  settle 
the  nation,  are  pleased  to  be  kind." 

Don't  let  me  lose  my  lord  by  any  seeming  self-sufficiency 
or  petulance :  I  look  on  my  own  shortcomings  too  sorrow- 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONTINUED.  235 

fully,  try  to  remedy  them  too  earnestly :  but  I  shall  never 
change  my  point  of  sight,  or  feel  other  than  disconcerted  and 
apprehensive  when  the  public,  critics  and  all,  begin  to  under- 
stand and  approve  me.  But  what  right  have  you  to  discon- 
cert me  in  the  other  way  ?  Why  won't  you  ask  the  next  per- 
fumer for  a  packet  of  orris-xoox,  ?  Don't  everybody  know  't  is 
a  corruption  of  iris-root  —  the  Florentine  lily,  the  giaggolo, 
of  world-wide  fame  as  a  good  savor  ?  And  because  "  iris  " 
means  so  many  objects  already,  and  I  use  the  old  word,  you 
blame  me  !  But  I  write  in  the  blind-dark  and  bitter  cold,  and 
past  post-time  as  I  fear.  Take  my  truest  thanks,  and  under- 
stand at  least  this  rough  writing,  and,  at  all  events,  the  real 
affection  with  which  I  venture  to  regard  you.  And  u  I  " 
means  my  wife  as  well  as 

Yours  ever  faithfully, 

Robert  Browning. 

That  Mr.  Ruskin  was  open  to  conviction  and 
conversion  could  be  shown  from  the  difference  in 
his  tone  of  thought  about  poetry  before  and  after 
this  period ;  that  he  was  the  best  of  friends  with 
the  man  who  took  him  to  task  for  narrowness, 
may  be  seen  from  the  following  letter,  written  on 
the  next  Christmas  Eve. 

My  dear  Mr.  Ruskin,  —  Your  note  having  just  arrived, 
Robert  deputes  me  to  write  for  him  while  he  dresses  to  go 
out  on  an  engagement.  It  is  the  evening.  All  the  hours  are 
wasted,  since  the  morning,  through  our  not  being  found  at  the 
Rue  de  Grenelle,  but  here  —  and  our  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion or  self-satisfaction  insists  on  our  not  losing  a  moment 
more  by  our  own  fault. 

Thank  you,  thank  you  for  sending  us  your  book,  and  also 
for  writing  my  husband's  name  in  it.  It  will  be  the  same 
thing  as  if  you  had  written  mine  —  except  for  the  pleasure, 


236      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

as  you  say,  which  is  greater  so.     How  good  and  kind  you 
are ! 

And  not  well.  That  is  worst.  Surely  you  would  be  better 
if  you  had  the  summer  in  winter  we  have  here.  But  I  was  to 
write  only  a  word  —  Let  it  say  how  affectionately  we  regard 
you. 

Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 

3  Rue  du  Colysee, 
Thursday  Evening,  24th  [December,  1855]. 

So  it  was  true  —  was  it  ?  — 

"  I  've  a  Friend,  over  the  sea ; 
I  like  him,  but  he  loves  me. 
It  all  grew  out  of  the  books  I  write."  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   POLITICAL   ECONOMY   OF   ART. 
(1857-1858.) 

"  Pitch  thy  behavior  low,  thy  projects  high." 

George  Herbert. 

The  humble  work  of  the  drawing-classes  at 
Great  Ormond  Street  was  teaching  Mr.  Ruskin 
even  more  than  he  taught  his  pupils.  It  was 
showing  him  how  far  his  plans  were  practicable  ; 
how  they  should  be  modified  ;  how  they  might  be 
improved ;  and  especially  what  more,  beside  draw- 
ing-classes, was  needed  to  realize  his  ideal.  It 
brought  him  into  contact  with  uneducated  men, 
and  the  seamy  side  of  civilization,  as  it  is  usually 
thought  to  be  —  poverty  and  ignorance,  and,  most 
difficult  of  all  to  treat,  the  incompetence  and  the 
predestinated  unsuccess  of  too  many  an  ambitious 
nature.  That  was,  after  all,  the  great  problem 
which  was  to  occupy  him  ;  but  meanwhile  he  was 
anxiously  willing  to  cooperate  with  every  move- 
ment, to  join  hands  with  any  kind  of  man,  to  go 
anywhere,  do  anything  that  might  promote  the 
cause  he  had  at  heart. 

Already  at  the  end  of  1854  he  had  given  three 
lectures,  his  second  course,  at  the  Architectural 


238       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

Museum,  specially  addressed  to  workmen  in  the 
decorative  trades.  His  subjects  were  design  and 
color,  and  his  illustrations  were  chiefly  drawn 
from  mediaeval  illumination,  which  he  had  long 
been  studying.  His  father  did  not  care  about  his 
lecturing,  then  rather  looked  down  upon  as  "  little 
better  than  play-acting,"  which  was  distinctly  not 
the  occupation  of  a  gentleman.  So  these  were 
informal,  quasi-private  affairs,  which  nevertheless 
attracted  notice,  owing  to  the  celebrity  of  the 
speaker.  It  would  have  been  better  if  his  ad- 
dresses had  been  carefully  prepared  and  authen- 
tically published ;  for  a  chance  word  here  and 
there  raised  replies  about  matters  of  detail,  in 
which  his  critics  thought  they  had  gained  a  tech- 
nical advantage,  which  added  weight  to  his  father's 
desire  not  to  see  him  "  expose  himself"  in  this  way. 
There  were  no  more  lectures  until  the  beginning 
of  1857. 

On  January  23,  1857,  he  spoke  before  the 
Architectural  Association  upon  "  The  Influence 
of  Imagination  in  Architecture,"  repeating  and 
amplifying  what  he  had  said  at  Edinburgh  about 
the  subordinate  value  of  mere  proportion,  and  the 
importance  of  sculptured  ornament  based  on  nat- 
ural forms.  This  of  course  would  involve  the 
creation  of  a  class  of  stone-carvers  who  could  be 
trusted  with  the  execution  of  such  work.  Once 
grant  the  value  of  it,  and  public  demand  would 
encourage  the  supply,  and  the  workmen  would 
raise  themselves  in  the  effort. 


THE    POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    ART.  239 

A  louder  note  was  sounded  in  an  address  at 
the  St.  Martin's  School  of  Art,  Castle  Street, 
Long  Acre  (April  2,  1857),  where,  speaking  after 
George  Cruikshank,  his  old  friend  —  practically 
his  first  master  (see  p.  46)  —  and  an  enthusiastic 
philanthropist  and  temperance  advocate,  Mr.  Rus- 
kin  gave  his  audience  a  wider  view  of  art  than 
they  had  known  before :  "  the  kind  of  painting 
they  most  wanted  in  London  was  painting  cheeks 
red  with  health."  This  was  anticipating  the  stand- 
point of  the  Oxford  Lectures,  and  showed  how  the 
inquiry  was  beginning  to  take  a  much  broader 
aspect. 

Another  work  in  a  similar  spirit,  the  North 
London  School  of  Design,  had  been  prosperously 
started  by  a  circle  of  men  under  Pre-Raphaelite 
influence,  and  led  by  Thomas  Seddon.  He  had 
given  up  historical  and  poetic  painting  for  natu- 
ralistic landscape,  and  had  returned  from  the  East 
with  the  most  valuable  studies  completed,  only  to 
break  down  and  die  prematurely.  His  friends, 
among  them  Mr.  Holman  Hunt,  were  collecting 
money  to  buy  from  the  widow  his  picture  of  Jeru- 
salem from  the  Mount  of  Olives,  to  present  it  to 
the  National  Gallery  as  a  memorial  of  him ;  and 
at  a  meeting  for  the  purpose,  Mr.  Ruskin  spoke 
warmly  of  his  labors  in  the  cause  of  the  working 
classes.  "  The  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of 
the  Church,"  said  the  early  Christians,  and  this 
public  recognition  sealed  the  character  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  philanthropic    movement;    though   at 


24O      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

what  cost,  the  memoir  of  Thomas  Seddon  by  his 
brother  too  amply  proves. 

The  next  step  in  the  propaganda  was  of  a  still 
more  public  nature.  In  the  summer  of  1857  the 
Art  Treasures  Exhibition  was  held  at  Manchester, 
and  Mr.  Ruskin  was  invited  to  lecture.  The 
theme  he  chose  was  "  The  Political  Economy  of 
Art."  He  had  been  studying  political  economy 
closely  for  some  time  back,  but,  as  we  saw  from 
his  letter  to  Carlyle,  he  had  found  no  answer  in 
the  ordinary  text-books  for  the  questions  he  had 
to  put.  He  wanted  to  know  what  Bentham  and 
Ricardo  and  Mill,  the  great  authorities,  would 
advise  him  as  to  the  best  way  of  employing 
artists,  of  educating  workmen,  of  elevating  public 
taste,  of  regulating  patronage  ;  but  these  subjects 
were  not  in  their  programme.  And  so  he  put 
together  his  own  thoughts  into  two  lectures  upon 
art  considered  as  wealth:  first,  how  to  get  it; 
next,  how  to  use  it. 

He  compared  the  body  politic  to  a  farm,  of 
which  the  "  economy,"  in  the  original  sense,  con- 
sisted, not  in  sparing,  still  less  in  standing  by  and 
criticising,  but  in  active  direction  and  manage- 
ment. He  thought  that  the  government  of  a 
state,  like  a  good  farmer  or  housekeeper,  should 
not  be  content  with  laissez  faire,  but  should  pro- 
mote everything  that  was  for  the  true  interests  of 
the  state,  and  watch  over  all  the  industries  and  arts 
which  make  for  civilization.  It  should  undertake 
education,  and  be  responsible  for  the  employment 


THE    POLITICAL   ECONOMY    OF   ART.  24 1 

of  the  artists  and  craftsmen  it  produced,  giving 
them  work  upon  public  buildings,  as  the  Venetian 
state  used  to  do.  Meantime  he  showed  what  an 
enlightened  public  might  aim  at,  what  their  stand- 
ards of  patronage  should  be ;  how,  for  example, 
each  and  all  might  help  the  cause  by  preferring 
artistic  decorative  work,  in  furniture  and  plate  and 
dress,  to  the  mechanical  products  of  inartistic 
manufacture ;  how  they  might  help  in  preserv- 
ing the  great  standard  buildings  and  pictures  of 
the  past,  not  without  advantage  to  their  own  art 
production ;  how  they  might  deal  directly  with 
the  artist  rather  than  the  dealer,  and  serve  the 
cause  of  education  by  placing  works  of  art  in 
schools.  And  he  concluded  by  suggesting  that 
the  mediaeval  guilds  of  craftsmen,  if  they  could  be 
reestablished,  would  be  of  great  service,  especially 
in  substituting  a  spirit  of  cooperation  for  that  of 
competition. 

There  were  very  few  points  in  these  lectures 
that  were  not  vigorously  contested  at  the  moment, 
and  conceded  in  the  sequel,  —  in  some  form  or 
other.  The  paternal  function  of  government,  the 
right  of  the  state  to  interfere  in  matters  beyond 
its  traditional  range,  its  duty  with  regard  to  edu- 
cation, —  all  this  was  quite  contrary  to  the  pre- 
vailing habits  of  thought  of  the  time,  especially  at 
Manchester,  the  headquarters  of  the  laissez  faire 
school;  but  to  Mr.  Ruskin,  who,  curiously  enough, 
had  just  then  been  referring  sarcastically  to  Ger- 
man philosophy,  knowing  it  only  at  second-hand, 


242       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF    JOHN    RUSKIN. 

and  unaware  of  Hegel's  political  work,  —  to  him 
this  Platonic  conception  of  the  state  was  the  only 
possible  one,  as  it  is  to  most  people  nowadays. 
In  the  same  way,  his  practical  advice  has  been 
accepted,  perhaps  unwittingly,  by  our  times.  We 
do  now  understand  the  difference  between  artistic 
decoration  and  machine-made  wares ;  we  do  now 
try  to  preserve  ancient  monuments,  and  to  use 
art  as  a  means  of  education.  And  we  are  in  a 
fair  way,  it  seems,  of  lowering  the  prices  of  pic- 
tures, as  he  bids  us,  to  "  not  more  than  ^"500  for 
an  oil  picture  and  ^"ioo  for  a  water-color." 

From  Manchester  he  went  with  his  parents  to 
Scotland  ;  for  his  mother,  now  beginning  to  grow 
old,  wanted  to  revisit  the  scenes  of  her  youth. 
They  went  to  the  Highlands,  and  as  far  north  as 
the  Bay  of  Cromarty,  and  then  returned  by  way 
of  the  Abbeys  of  the  Lowlands,  to  look  up  Turner 
sites,  as  he  had  done  in  1845  on  the  St.  Gothard. 
From  the  enjoyment  of  this  holiday  he  was  re- 
called to  London  by  a  letter  from  Mr.  Wornum 
saying  that  he  could  arrange  the  Turner  drawings 
at  the  National  Gallery. 

Mr.  Ruskin's  first  letter  on  the  National  Gal- 
lery, in  1847,  has  been  noticed.  He  had  written 
again  to  the  "Times"  (December  29,  1852),  press- 
ing the  same  point,  namely,  that  if  the  pictures 
were  put  under  glass,  no  cleaning  nor  restoring 
would  be  needed ;  and  that  the  Gallery  ought  not 
to  be  considered  as  a  grand  hall,  decorated  with 
pictures,  but   as   a   convenient   museum,  with   a 


THE    POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF   ART.  243 

chronological  sequence  of  the  best  works  of  all 
schools,  —  every  picture  hung  on  the  line  and 
accompanied  by  studies  for  it,  if  procurable,  and 
engravings  from  it. 

Now,  —  in  1857,  —  question  was  raised  of  re- 
moving the  National  Gallery  from  Trafalgar 
Square.  The  South  Kensington  Museum  was 
being  formed,  and  the  whole  business  of  arrang- 
ing the  national  art  treasures  was  gone  into  by  a 
Royal  Commission,  consisting  of  Lord  Broughton 
(in  the  chair),  Dean  Milman,  Professor  Faraday, 
Professor  Cockerell,  and  Mr.  George  Richmond. 
Mr.  Ruskin  was  examined  before  them  on  April 
6th,  and  restated  the  opinions  he  had  written  to 
the  "  Times,"  adding  that  he  would  like  to  see 
two  National  Galleries,  —  one  of  popular  interest, 
containing  such  works  as  would  catch  the  public 
eye  and  enlist  the  sympathy  of  the  untaught ;  and 
another  containing  only  the  cream  of  the  collec- 
tions, in  pictures,  sculpture,  and  the  decorative 
crafts,  arranged  for  purposes  of  study.  This  was 
suggested  as  an  ideal;  of  course,  it  would  involve 
more  outlay,  and  less  display,  than  any  Parlia- 
mentary vote  would  sanction,  or  party  leader  risk. 

Another  question  of  importance  was  the  dis- 
posal of  the  pictures  and  sketches  which  Turner 
had  left  to  the  nation.  Mr.  Ruskin  was  one  of 
the  executors  under  the  will;  but,  on  finding  that, 
though  Turner's  intention  was  plain,  there  were 
technical  informalities  which  would  make  the  ad- 
ministration anything   but  easy,  he  declined  to 


244       THE    LIFE    AND    WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

act.  It  was  not  until  1856  that  the  litigation  was 
concluded,  and  Turner's  pictures  and  sketches 
handed  over  to  the  trustees  of  the  National  Gal- 
lery. Mr.  Ruskin,  whose  want  of  legal  knowledge 
had  made  his  services  useless  before,  now  felt 
that  he  could  carry  out  the  spirit  of  Turner's  will 
by  offering  to  arrange  the  sketches ;  which  were 
in  such  a  state  of  confusion  that  only  some  per- 
son with  knowledge  of  the  artist's  habits  of  work 
and  subjects  could,  so  to  speak,  edit  them ;  and 
the  editor  would  need  no  ordinary  patience  and 
skill  and  judgment,  into  the  bargain.  As  Mr. 
Ruskin  was,  I  suppose,  the  only  man  in  the  world 
fully  qualified  and  at  leisure  for  such  a  work,  his 
offer  was  accepted,  —  the  more  readily,  no  doubt, 
as  he  would  work  for  nothing. 

Meanwhile,  for  that  winter  (1856-57)  a  prelimi- 
nary exhibition  was  held  of  Turner's  oil-paintings, 
with  a  few  water-colors,  at  Marlborough  House, 
then  the  headquarters  of  the  Department  of 
Science  and  Art,  soon  afterwards  removed  to 
South  Kensington.  Mr.  Ruskin  wrote  a  cata- 
logue, with  analysis  of  Turner's  periods  of  de- 
velopment and  characteristics;  which  made  the 
collection  intelligible  and  interesting  to  curious 
sight-seers.  They  showed  their  appreciation  by 
taking  up  five  editions  in  rapid  succession. 

Just  before  lecturing  at  Manchester,  he  wrote 
again  on  the  subject  to  the  "  Times ;  "  and  in 
September  his  friend  R.  N.  Wornum,  Director  of 
the  National  Gallery  in  succession  to   Eastlake 


John  Ruskin  in  i8j/ 


. 


THE    POLITICAL    ECONOMY   OF   ART.  245 

and  Uwins,  wrote  —  as  we  saw  —  that  he  might 
arrange  the  sketches  as  he  pleased.  He  returned 
from  Scotland,  and  set  to  work  on  October  7th. 

It  was  strange  employment  for  a  man  of  his 
powers ;  almost  as  removed  from  the  Epicurean 
Olympus  of  "  cultured  ease  "  popularly  assigned 
to  him,  as  night-school  teaching  and  lecturing 
workmen.  But,  beside  that  it  was  the  carrying 
out  of  Turner's  wishes,  Mr.  Ruskin  has  always 
had  a  certain  love  for  experimenting  in  manual 
toil ; 1  and  this  was  work  in  which  his  extreme 
neatness  and  deftness  of  hand  were  needed,  no 
less  than  his  knowledge  and  judgment.  During 
the  winter,  for  full  six  months,  he  and  his  two  as- 
sistants worked,  all  day  and  every  day,  among  the 
masses  of  precious  rubbish  that  had  been  removed 
from  Queen  Anne  Street  to  the  National  Gallery. 

Turner  used  to  sketch  frequently  on  thin  paper 
which  he  folded  across  and  across  for  packing,  or 
rolled  in  tight  bundles  to  go  into  his  pockets. 
When  he  got  his  sketches  home,  as  they  were 
only  pour  servir  and  of  no  value  to  any  one  but 

1  For  instance,  when  he  scrubbed  the  stairs  at  the  hotel  at  Sixt, 
because  his  mother  complained  of  their  dirty  condition  ;  and  when 
he  took  regular  lessons,  later  on,  in  crossing-sweeping,  stone-break- 
ing, carpentry,  and  house-painting.  His  neatness  runs  almost  to 
excess  when,  in  signing  a  drawing  or  inscribing  a  book  for  presen- 
tation, he  rules  triple  lines  and  prints,  as  he  used  to  do  in  his  boy- 
hood, name  and  date,  and  all  the  rest,  in  elaborate  Roman  script ; 
instead  of  the  scrabbled  check-signature  which  is  fashionable  in 
such  cases.  The  orderliness  of  his  bookshelves  and  mineral 
drawers  is  quite  unexceptionable ;  his  own  sketches  he  leaves  in 
dusty  confusion. 


246      THE   LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

himself,  they  were  crammed  into  drawers,  any- 
how, and  left  there,  decade  after  decade.  His 
sketch-books  had  rotted  to  pieces  with  the  damp, 
their  pages  pressed  together  into  mouldering 
masses.  Soft  chalk  lay  loose  among  the  leaves, 
crushed  into  powder  when  the  book  was  packed 
away.  He  economized  his  paper  by  covering 
both  sides,  and  of  course  did  not  trouble  to  "  fix  " 
his  sketches,  still  less  to  mount  and  frame  them, 
as  the  proud  amateur  is  careful  to  do. 

Among  the  quantities  so  recklessly  thrown 
aside  for  dust,  damp,  soot,  mice,  and  worms  to 
destroy  —  some  15,000  Mr.  Ruskin  reckoned  at 
first,  19,000  later  on  —  there  were  many  fine  draw- 
ings, which  had  been  used  by  the  engravers,  and 
vast  numbers  of  interesting  and  valuable  studies 
in  color  and  in  pencil.  Four  hundred  of  these 
were  extricated  from  the  chaos,  and  with  infinite 
pains  cleaned,  flattened,  mounted,  dated,  and  de- 
scribed, and  placed  in  sliding  frames  in  cabinets 
devised  by  Mr.  Ruskin,  or  else  in  swivel  frames, 
to  let  both  sides  of  the  paper  be  seen.  The  first 
results  of  the  work  were  shown  in  an  exhibition 
at  Marlborough  House  during  the  winter,  for 
which  Mr.  Ruskin  wrote  another  catalogue.  Of 
the  whole  collection  he  began  a  more  complete 
account,  which  was  too  elaborate  to  be  finished  in 
that  form  ;  but  in  1881  he  published  a  "  Catalogue 
of  the  Drawings  and  Sketches  of  J.  M.  W.  Tur- 
ner, R.  A.,  at  present  exhibited  in  the  National 
Gallery,"  so  that  his  plan  was  practically  fulfilled. 


THE    POLITICAL   ECONOMY    OF   ART.  247 

The  collection  —  a  monument  of  one  great 
man's  genius  and  another's  patience  —  is  still 
housed  in  the  cellars  of  Trafalgar  Square,  and  it 
has  never  been  so  honorably  viewed  and  so  freely 
used  as  Mr.  Ruskin  once  hoped.  But  in  propor- 
tion to  the  means  at  the  disposal  of  the  powers 
that  be,  Turner  is  well  treated.  The  sketches 
can  at  least  be  got  at  by  those  who  know  about 
them  and  care  to  study  them,  and  the  pictures  are 
now  far  better  shown  than  formerly.  The  his- 
torical arrangement  of  the  various  schools,  also, 
has  been  improved  with  every  successive  rehang- 
ing ;  and  the  primitive  masters,  once  neglected, 
have  now  almost  the  lion's  share  of  the  show. 
Such  are  Time's  revenges. 

During  1858  Mr.  Ruskin  continued  to  lecture 
at  various  places  on  subjects  connected  with  his 
Manchester  addresses,  —  the  relation  of  art  to 
manufacture,  and  especially  the  dependence  of  all 
great  architectural  design  upon  sculpture  or  paint- 
ing of  organic  form.  The  first  of  the  series  was 
given  at  the  opening  of  the  South  Kensington 
Museum,  January  12,  1858,  entitled  "The  De- 
teriorative Power  of  Conventional  Art  over  Na- 
tions ;  "  in  which  he  showed  that  naturalism,  as 
opposed  to  meaningless  pattern-making,  was  al- 
ways a  sign  of  life.  For  example,  the  strength  of 
the  Greek,  Florentine,  and  Venetian  art  arose  out 
of  the  search  for  truth,  not,  as  it  is  often  supposed, 
out  of  striving  after  an  ideal  of  beauty ;  and  as 
soon   as   nature  was   superseded  by  recipe,   the 


248      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

greatest  schools  hastened  to  their  fall.  From 
which  he  concluded  that  modern  design  should 
always  be  founded  on  natural  form,  rather  than 
upon  the  traditional  patterns  of  the  east  or  of  the 
medisevals. 

On  February  16th,  he  spoke  on  "  The  Work  of 
Iron,  in  Nature,  Art,  and  Policy,"  at  Tunbridge 
Wells  ;  a  subject  similar  to  that  of  his  address  to 
the  St.  Martin's  School  of  the  year  before,  but 
amplified  into  a  plea  for  the  use  of  wrought-iron 
ornament,  as  in  the  new  Oxford  Museum,  then 
building. 

The  Oxford  Museum  was  an  experiment  in  the 
true  Gothic  revival.  There  had  been  plenty  of 
so-called  Gothic  architecture  ever  since  Horace 
Walpole;  but  it  had  aimed  rather  at  imitating 
the  forms  of  the  Middle  Ages  than  at  reviving  the 
spirit.  The  architects  at  Oxford,  Sir  Thomas 
Deane  and  Mr.  Woodward,  had  allowed  their 
workmen  to  design  parts  of  the  detail,  such  as 
capitals  and  spandrils,  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Mr. 
Ruskin's  teaching,  and  the  work  was  accordingly 
of  deep  interest  to  him.  So  far  back  as  April, 
1856,  he  had  given  an  address  to  the  men  em- 
ployed at  the  Museum,  whom  he  met,  on  Dr. 
Acland's  invitation,  at  the  Workmen's  Reading 
Rooms.  He  said  that  his  object  was  not  to  give 
laboring  men  the  chance  of  becoming  masters  of 
other  laboring  men,  and  to  help  the  few  at  the 
expense  of  the  many,  but  to  lead  them  to  those 
sources   of  pleasure,   and  power  over  their  own 


THE    POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    ART.  249 

minds  and  hands,  that  more  educated  people  pos- 
sess. He  did  not  sympathize  with  the  socialism 
that  had  been  creeping  into  vogue  since  1848.  He 
thought  existing  social  arrangements  good,  and  he 
agreed  with  his  friends  the  Carlyles,  who  had 
found  that  it  was  only  the  incapable  who  could 
not  get  work.  But  it  was  the  fault  of  the  wealthy 
and  educated  that  working  people  were  not  better 
trained;  it  was  not  the  workingmen's  fault,  at 
bottom.  The  modern  architect  used  his  workman 
as  a  mere  tool ;  while  the  Gothic  spirit  set  him 
free  as  an  original  designer,  to  gain,  not  more 
wages  and  higher  social  rank,  but  pleasure  and 
instruction,  the  true  happiness  that  lies  in  good 
work  well  done. 

That  was  his  view  in  those  times.  The  Oxford 
Museum  prospered,  and  Dr.  Acland  and  he  to- 
gether wrote  a  small  book,  reporting  its  aims  and 
progress  in  1858  and  1859,  illustrated  with  an 
engraving  of  one  of  the  workmen's  capitals.  It 
was  no  secret,  then,  that  the  Museum  was  an  ex- 
periment ;  and,  like  all  experiments,  it  left  much 
to  be  desired ;  but  it  paved  the  way,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  the  general  adoption  of  Gothic  for  domes- 
tic purposes,  and,  on  the  other,  to  the  recognition 
of  a  new  class  of  men,  —  the  art-craftsmen. 

Parallel  with  this  movement  for  educating  the 
"  working-class  "  there  was  the  scheme  for  the  im- 
provement of  middle-class  education,  which  was 
then  going  on  at  Oxford,  —  the  beginning  of 
University  Extension,  —  supported  by  the  Rev.  F. 


25O      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

Temple  (now  Bishop  of  London)  and  Mr.  (after- 
wards Sir)  Thomas  Dyke  Acland.  Mr.  Ruskin 
was  heartily  for  them  ;  and  in  a  letter  on  the  sub- 
ject, he  tried  to  show  how  the  teaching  of  art 
might  be  made  to  work  in  with  the  scheme.  He 
did  not  think  that  in  this  plan,  any  more  than  at 
the  Working  Men's  College,  there  need  be  an 
attempt  to  teach  drawing  with  a  view  to  forming 
artists ;  but  there  were  three  objects  they  might 
hold  in  view :  the  first,  to  give  every  student  the 
advantage  of  the  happiness  and  knowledge  which 
the  study  of  art  conveys;  the  next,  to  enforce 
some  knowledge  of  art  amongst  those  who  were 
likely  to  become  patrons  or  critics ;  and  the  last, 
to  leave  no  Giotto  lost  among  hill  shepherds.  The 
study  of  art  history  he  considered  unnecessary  to 
ordinary  education,  and  too  wide  a  subject  to  be 
treated  in  the  usual  curriculum  of  schools ;  but 
the  practice  of  drawing  might  go  hand  in  hand 
with  natural  history,  and  the  habit  of  looking  at 
things  with  an  artist's  eye  would  be  invaluable. 
He  proposed  a  plan  of  studies,  interweaving  the 
art  lessons  with  every  other  department,  instead  of 
relegating  them  to  a  poor  hour  a  week  of  idling  or 
insubordination  under  a  master  who  ranked  with 
the  drill-sergeant.  Something  has  been  done, 
both  by  the  delegates  for  local  examinations  (whom 
this  movement  created)  and  by  the  schools  them- 
selves, to  improve  the  teaching  of  drawing ;  but 
nothing  like  Mr.  Ruskin's  proposal  has  been  at- 
tempted —  simply  because  it  would   involve  the 


THE    POLITICAL   ECONOMY    OF   ART.  25 1 

employment  of  schoolmasters  who  could  draw, 
and  the  introduction  of  the  object-lesson  system 
into  the  higher  forms. 

This  intercourse  with  Oxford  and  willingness 
to  help,  even  at  the  lower  end  of  the  ladder,  is  a 
pleasant  episode  in  the  life  of  a  man  struggling 
in  the  wider  world  against  Academicism  and  the 
various  fallacies  of  traditional  creeds  and  cultures. 
There  was  nothing  of  the  Byronic  in  Mr.  Rus- 
kin's  attitude,  nor  did  he  try  to  advertise  his  in- 
dividuality by  a  childish  petulance  toward  poor 
old  Alma  Mater. 


CHAPTER  X. 

MODERN    PAINTERS   CONCLUDED. 
(1858-1860.) 

"So  the  dreams  depart, 
So  the  fading  phantoms  flee, 
And  the  sharp  reality 
Now  must  act  its  part." 

Westwood's  Beads  from  a  Rosary. 

Oxford  and  old  friends  did  not  monopolize 
Mr.  Ruskin's  attention :  he  was  soon  seen  at 
Cambridge  —  on  the  same  platform  with  Mr. 
Richard  Redgrave,  R.  A.,  the  representative  of 
Academicism  and  officialism  —  at  the  opening  of 
the  school  of  art  for  workmen  on  October  29, 
1858.  His  inaugural  address  struck  a  deeper 
note,  a  wider  chord,  than  previous  essays ;  it  was 
the  forecast  of  the  last  volume  of  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers," and  it  sketched  the  train  of  thought  into 
which  he  had  been  led  during  his  tour  abroad, 
that  summer. 

Mr.  Ruskin  is  morally  conservative,  intellectu- 
ally radical.  His  instincts  cling  to  the  past,  his 
intelligence  leads  him  ahead  of  his  time.  The 
battles  between  faith  and  criticism,  between  the 
historical  and  the  scientific  attitudes,  which  had 
been  going  on  in  his  mind,  were  taking  a  new 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONCLUDED.  253 

form.  At  the  outset,  we  saw,  the  naturalist  over- 
powered respect  for  tradition,  —  in  the  first  vol- 
ume of  "  Modern  Painters ; "  then  the  historical 
tendency  won  the  day,  in  the  second  volume. 
Since  that  time,  the  critical  side  had  been  gather- 
ing strength,  by  his  alliance  with  progressist 
movements  and  by  his  gradual  detachment  from 
associations  that  held  him  to  the  older  order  of 
thought.  And  just  as  in  his  lonely  journey  of 
1845  he  first  took  independent  ground  upon 
questions  of  religion  and  social  life,  so  in  1858, 
once  more  traveling  alone,  he  was  led  by  his 
meditations  —  freed  from  the  restraining  pres- 
ence of  his  parents  —  to  conclusions  which  he 
had  been  all  these  years  evading,  yet  finding  at 
last  inevitable. 

He  went  abroad  for  a  third  attempt  to  write 
and  illustrate  his  History  of  Swiss  Towns.  The 
drawings  of  the  year  were  still  in  the  style  of  fine 
pen-etching  combined  with  broadly  gradated  and 
harmonious  tints  of  color;  or,  when  they  were 
simply  pen  or  pencil  outlines,  they  were  much 
more  refined  than  those  of  ten  years  earlier.  He 
spent  May  on  the  Upper  Rhine  between  Basle 
and  Schaffhausen,  June  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  Swiss  Baden,  July  at  Bellinzona.  In  reflecting 
over  the  sources  of  Swiss  character,  as  connected 
with  the  question  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  art 
in  morality,  he  was  struck  with  the  fact  that  all 
the  virtues  of  the  Swiss  did  not  make  them  artis- 
tic.    Compared  with  most  nations  they  were  as 


2  54      THE    LIFE   AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

children  in  painting,  music,  and  poetry.  And,  in- 
deed, they  ranked  with  the  early  phases  of  many 
great  nations  —  the  period  of  pristine  simplicity 
"  uncorrupted  by  the  arts." 

From  Bellinzona  he  went  to  Turin  on  his  way 
to  the  Vaudois  valleys,  where  he  meant  to  com- 
pare the  Waldensian  Protestants  with  the  Swiss. 
Accidentally  he  saw  Paul  Veronese's  Queen  of 
Sheba,  and  other  Venetian  pictures ;  and  so  fell 
to  comparing  a  period  of  fully  ripened  art  with 
one  of  artlessness ;  discovering  that  the  mature 
art,  while  it  appeared  at  the  same  time  with  decay 
in  morals,  did  not  spring  from  that  decay,  but 
was  rooted  in  the  virtues  of  the  earlier  age.  He 
grasped  a  clue  to  the  puzzle,  in  the  generalization 
that  art  is  the  product  of  human  happiness  ;  it  is 
contrary  to  asceticism;  it  is  the  expression  of 
pleasure.  But  when  the  turning  point  of  national 
progress  is  once  reached,  and  art  is  regarded  as 
the  laborious  incitement  to  pleasure,  —  no  longer 
the  spontaneous  blossom  and  fruit  of  it,  —  the 
decay  sets  in  for  art  as  well  as  for  morality.  Art, 
in  short,  is  created  by  pleasure,  not /or  pleasure. 

And  so  both  the  ascetics  who  refuse  art  are 
wrong,  and  the  Epicureans  who  make  it  a  means 
of  pleasure-seeking :  the  latter  obviously  and  cul- 
pably, because  in  their  hands  it  becomes  rapidly 
degraded  into  a  mere  sensational  or  sensual  stim- 
ulus, and  loses  its  own  finest  qualities,  techni- 
cally as  well  as  morally.  But  the  ascetics  are 
wrong,  too,  because  we  cannot  place  ourselves  at 


MODERN    PAINTERS     CONCLUDED.  255 

the  fountain  head  again,  and  resume  the  pristine 
simplicity  of  nascent  society.  Such  was  the  claim 
of  the  modern  Vaudois  whom  he  had  gone  forth 
to  bless,  as  descendants  of  those  "  slaughtered 
saints  whose  bones  lay  scattered  on  the  Alpine 
mountains  cold."  He  found  them  keeping  but 
the  relics  and  grave-clothes  of  a  pure  faith  ; *  and 
that  at  the  cost  of  abstention  from  all  service  to 
the  struggling  Italy  of  their  time,  —  at  the  cost, 
too,  of  a  flat  refusal  to  reverence  the  best  achieve- 
ments of  the  past.  No  doubt  there  were  exem- 
plary persons  among  them ;  but  the  standard  of 
thought,  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the  Walden- 
sians,  Mr.  Ruskin  now  perceived  to  be  quite  im- 
possible for  himself.  He  could  not  look  upon 
every  one  outside  their  fold  as  heathens  and  pub- 
licans ;  he  could  not  believe  that  the  pictures  of 
Paul  Veronese  were  works  of  iniquity,  nor  that 
the  motives  of  great  deeds  in  earlier  ages  were 
lying  superstitions.  He  took  courage  to  own  to 
himself  and  others  that  it  was  no  longer  any  use 
trying  to  identify  his  point  of  view  with  that  of 
Protestantism.  He  saw  both  Protestants  and 
Roman   Catholics,  in  the  perspective  of  history, 

1  I  think  I  owe  it  to  some  who  will  be  pained  by  this  paragraph 
to  say  here,  once  for  all,  that  I  am  trying  to  give  them  Mr.  Rus- 
kin's  life  and  work,  not  my  opinions.  And  consequently  I  write 
as  if  the  reader  had  no  personal  feelings.  It  is  surely  possible  to 
admire  a  great  man,  though  one  differs  from  him  (as  I  do  from  Mr. 
Ruskin)  in  everything  that  goes  to  make  prejudice ;  in  national- 
ity, to  begin  with,  and  in  all  the  associations  of  religion,  politics, 
and  art.  I  can  only  ask  the  reader  to  take  the  same  standpoint, 
—  and  to  read  on  to  the  end. 


256      THE    LIFE    AND    WORK    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

converging  into  a  primitive,  far  distant,  ideal 
unity  of  Christianity,  in  which  he  still  believed ; 
but  he  could  take  neither  side,  after  this. 

The  first  statement  of  the  new  point  of  view 
was,  as  we  said,  the  Inaugural  Lecture  of  the 
Cambridge  School  of  Art.  The  next  important 
utterance  was  at  Manchester,  February  22,  1859, 
where  he  spoke  on  the  unity  of  art,  by  which 
he  meant,  not  the  fraternity  of  handicrafts  with 
painting,  as  the  term  is  used  nowadays,  but  that, 
in  whatever  branch  of  art,  the  spirit  of  truth  or 
sincerity  is  the  same.  In  this  lecture  there  is  a 
very  important  passage  showing  how  he  had  at 
last  got  upon  firm  ground  in  the  question  of  art 
and  morality :  "  I  do  not  say  in  the  least  that  in 
order  to  be  a  good  painter  you  must  be  a  good  man  ; 
but  I  do  say  that  in  order  to  be  a  good  natural 
painter  there  must  be  strong  elements  of  good  in 
the  mind,  however  warped  by  other  parts  of  the 
character."  So  emphatic  a  statement  deserves 
more  attention  than  it  has  received  from  readers 
and  writers  who  assume  to  judge  Mr.  Ruskin's 
views  after  a  slight  acquaintance  with  his  earlier 
works.  He  was  well  aware  himself  that  his  mind 
had  been  gradually  enlarging,  and  his  thoughts 
changing ;  and  he  soon  saw  as  great  a  difference 
between  himself  at  forty  and  at  twenty-five,  as  he 
had  formerly  seen  between  the  boy  poet  and  the 
art  critic.  He  became  as  anxious  to  forget  his 
earlier  great  books,  as  he  had  been  to  forget 
his  verse-writing ;   and  when  he  came  to  collect 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONCLUDED.  257 

his  "  Works,"  these  lectures,  under  the  title  of 
"  The  Two  Paths,"  were  the  earliest  admitted 
into  the  library. 

In  1859  the  last  Academy  Notes,  for  the  time 
being,  were  published.  The  Pre-Raphaelite  cause 
had  been  fully  successful,  and  the  new  school  of 
naturalist  landscape  was  rapidly  asserting  itself. 
Old  friends  were  failing,  such  as  Stanfield,  Lewis, 
and  Roberts ;  but  new  men  were  growing  up, 
among  whom  Mr.  Ruskin  welcomed  G.  D.  Leslie, 
F.  Goodall,  J.  C.  Hook, — who  had  come  out  of 
his  "  Pre-Raphaelite  measles "  into  the  healthy 
naturalism  of  "  Luff  Boy  !  "  —  Clarence  Whaite, 
Henry  Holiday,  and  above  all  John  Brett,  who 
showed  the  Val  d'Aosta.  Mr.  Millais'  Vale  of 
Rest  was  the  picture  which  attracted  most  notice  : 
something  of  the  old  rancor  against  the  school 
was  revived  in  the  "  Morning  Herald,"  which 
called  his  works  "  impertinences,"  "  contemptible," 
"  indelible  disgrace,"  and  so  on.  It  was  the  be- 
ginning of  a  transition  from  the  delicacy  of  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  Millais  to  his  later  style ;  and  as 
such  the  preacher  of  "All  great  art  is  delicate  " 
could  not  entirely  defend  it.  But  the  serious 
strength  of  the  imagination  and  the  power  of  the 
execution  he  praised  with  unexpected  warmth. 

He  then  started  on  the  last  tour  abroad  with  his 
parents.  He  had  been  asked,  rather  pointedly,  by 
the  National  Gallery  commission,  whether  he  had 
seen  the  great  German  museums,  and  had  been 
obliged  to  reply  that  he  had  not.     Perhaps  it  oc- 


258      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

curred  to  him  or  to  his  father  that  he  ought  to  see 
the  pictures  at  Berlin  and  Dresden  and  Munich, 
even  though  he  heartily  disliked  the  Germans, 
with  their  art  and  their  language  and  everything 
that  belonged  to  them,  —  except  Holbein  and 
Diirer.  By  the  end  of  July  the  travelers  were  in 
North  Switzerland ;  and  they  spent  September  in 
Savoy,  returning  home  by  October  7th. 

Old  Mr.  Ruskin  was  now  in  his  seventy-fifth 
year ;  and  his  desire  was  to  see  the  great  work 
finished  before  he  died.  There  had  been  some 
attempt  to  write  this  last  volume  of  "  Modern 
Painters  "  in  the  previous  winter,  but  it  had  been 
put  off  until  after  the  visit  to  Germany  had  com- 
pleted Mr.  Ruskin's  study  of  the  great  Venetian 
painters  —  especially  Titian  and  Veronese.  Now 
at  last,  in  the  autumn  of  1859,  he  finally  set  to 
work  on  the  writing. 

He  had  to  do  for  vegetation,  clouds,  and  water, 
what  Volume  IV.  had  done  for  mountains ;  and 
also  to  treat  of  the  laws  of  composition.  To  do 
this  on  a  scale  corresponding  with  his  foregoing 
work  would  have  needed  four  or  five  more  vol- 
umes. As  it  was,  the  author  dropped  the  section 
on  water,  with  promises  of  a  book  which  he 
never  wrote,  and  the  rest  was  only  sketched  — 
somewhat  ampler  in  detail  than  corresponding 
parts  of  the  "  Elements  of  Drawing,"  but  still  in- 
adequately and  half-heartedly,  as  an  artist  would 
complete  a  work  when  the  patron  who  commis- 
sioned it  had  died. 


MODERN    PAINTERS    CONCLUDED.  259 

The  whole  book  had  been  simply  the  assertion 
of  Turner's  genius  —  plucky  and  necessary  in  the 
young  man  of  1843,  but  superfluous  in  i860,  when 
his  main  thesis  was  admitted,  and  his  own  inter- 
ests, as  well  as  the  needs  of  a  totally  different 
period,  had  drifted  far  away  from  the  original  sub- 
ject. Turner  was  long  since  dead,  his  fame  thor- 
oughly vindicated,  his  bequest  to  the  nation  dealt 
with  so  far  as  possible.  The  Early  Christian  Art 
was  recognized  —  almost  beyond  its  claims ;  for 
Angelico  and  his  circle,  great  as  they  were  in  their 
age,  had  begun  to  lead  modern  religious  painters 
into  affectation.  The  Pre-Raphaelites  and  natu- 
ralistic landscapists  no  longer  needed  the  hand 
which  "  Modern  Painters  "  had  held  out  to  them 
by  the  way.  Of  the  great  triad  of  Venice,  Tin- 
toret  had  been  expounded ;  Veronese  and  Titian 
were  now  taken  up  and  treated  with  tardy  but 
ample  recognition. 

And  now,  after  twenty  years  of  labor,  Mr.  Rus- 
kin  had  established  himself  as  the  recognized 
leader  of  criticism  and  the  exponent  of  painting 
and  architecture.  He  had  created  a  department 
of  literature  all  his  own,  and  adorned  it  with 
works  of  which  the  like  had  never  been  seen.  He 
had  enriched  the  art  of  England  with  examples  of 
a  new  and  beautiful  draughtsmanship,  and  the 
language  with  passages  of  poetic  description  and 
eloquent  declamation,  quite  unrivaled  in  their 
way.  As  a  philosopher,  he  had  built  up  a  theory 
of  art,  as  yet  uncontested,  and  treated  both  its 


260      THE    LIFE    AND   WORK   OF   JOHN    RUSKIN. 

abstract  nature  and  its  relations  to  human  con- 
duct and  policy.  As  a  historian,  he  had  thrown 
new  light  on  the  Middle  Ages  and  Renaissance, 
illustrating,  in  a  way  then  novel,  their  chronicles 
by  their  remains.  He  had  beaten  down  all  oppo- 
sition, risen  above  all  detraction,  and  won  the  prize 
of  honor  —  only  to  realize,  as  he  received  it,  that 
the  fight  had  been  but  a  pastime  tournament,  after 
all;  and  to  hear,  through  the  applause,  the  ene- 
my's trumpet  sounding  to  battle.  For  now,  with- 
out the  camp,  there  were  realities  to  face ;  as  to 
art  —  "  the  best  in  this  kind  are  but  shadows." 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX   TO   VOL.   I. 


CHRONOLOGY. 


(1819-1860.) 

1819.  —  Feb.  8.  John  Ruskinborn:  54  Hunter 
St.,  Brunswick  Sq 

1822.  — To  Scotland,  Perth.  Portrait  by  North- 
Age  3.        cote       

1823. —  Summer  tour  in  southwest  of  England. 
Age  4.        Removed  to  (No.  28)   . 

1824.  —  Tour  to  the  Lakes.  Stayed  at  Keswick 
Age  5.        and  Perth 

1825.  aged  —  To  Paris,  Brussels,  Waterloo 

1826.  —  In  January  wrote  first  poem,  "  The  Need- 
Age  7.        less  Alarm."     Visited  Hastings 

"      Summer  tour  to  the  Lakes  and  Perth.     Be- 
gan Latin  grammar  at          ... 
1827. — Summer    at  Perth;    fever  at    Dunkeld; 
Age   8.        autumn,  wrote  "  Papa,  how  pretty  those 
icicles  are  !  " 

1828.  —  Summer  in  west  of  England.  Mary 
Age  9.        Richardson  adopted  by  his  parents 

1829.  —  Summer  in  Kent.  Wrote  dramatic  poem 
Age   10.      on  "  Waterloo "  .... 

1830.  —  Tour  to  the  Lakes.  "Iteriad."  Began 
Age   n.      Greek.    Copied  Cruikshank 

183 1.  —  First  drawing  lessons  from  Runciman. 
Age   12.       First  sketching  from  nature 

"      Summer  tour  in  Wales.   Began  mathematics 
under  Rowbotham         .... 

1832.  —  Summer  tour  in  Kent.  Wrote  "Mourn, 
Age    13.       Mizraim,   mourn"        .... 

*  iii 


London. 


Heme  Hill. 


APPENDIX. 


1834.  - 
Age   15. 


1835-  — 
Age   16. 


1836.- 
Age   17. 


1833.  —  Wrote   "  I  weary  for  the  torrent."    First 
Age   14.      Turner  study  in  Rogers's  "Italy"  Heme  Hill. 

"       Introduced  by  Pringle  to  Hogg  and  — 

Rogers 

"       May  n -Sept.  21.  — Tour  to  the  Rhine  — 

and  Switzerland  ....  — 

"       Copied  Rembrandt  ....    Paris. 

"       Wrote  poetical  journal  of  tour.    Went  to 

school  to  Rev.  T.  Dale  while  living  at    Heme  Hill. 
First  study  of  Alpine  geology  in   Saus- 

sure.     First  published  writings        .  — 

Summer  tour  to  west  of  England.    Re- 
turned to  school  ....  — 
Left  school  owing  to  attack  of  pleurisy  in 

the  spring  — 

June  2  -  Dec.  10. — Tour,  Switzerland  and    Italy. 
First    published     poems.      Wrote    the 

"  Don  Juan  "  journal,  etc.  .        .    Heme  Hill. 

Visit  of  the  Domecqs.    First  love-poems, 

and  study  of  Shelley     ....  — 

"       Lessons  from  Copley  Fielding.    Attended 

lectures  at  King's  College,  London  — 

"       July  at  Richmond.    Wrote  "  Marcolini  " 

and  Defense  of  Turner 
"       Tour  to  the  South  Coast,  after  matriculat- 
ing at  Christ-Church    ....    Oxford. 

1837.  —  Jan.  14.    Went  into  residence  at  Oxford 
Age   18.      wrote    "The  Gipsies" 

"        Summer  tour  to  the  Lakes  and  Yorkshire ; 

began  "  Poetry  of  Architecture  "  Heme  Hill. 

"       Began  papers  on  "  The  Convergence  of 

Perpendiculars"  ....    Oxford. 

1838.  —  Jan.,  to  Oxford;  returned  (June  28)  to    Heme  Hill. 
Age   19.  Wrote  essay,  "  Comparative  Advantages 

of  Music  and  Painting  "...  — 

"       J^y  3  -  Sept.  3.  —  Tour  with  parents  to 

the  Lakes  and Scotland. 

"       Oct.  -  Dec,  Oxford.    Dec,  visit  of  the 

Domecqs  Heme  Hill. 

1839.  —  Jan.  to  Oxford.     Recited   "Newdigate" 

Age  20.      at  Commemoration       ....    Oxford. 

iv 


CHRONOLOGY. 


1839-  ~ 
Age   20. 


1840.- 
Age   21. 


1841.- 

Age   22. 


1842. — 
Age  23. 


1843.— 
Age  24. 

1844.— 
Age  25. 


1845.- 
Age   26. 


Tour  with  parents  to  Cheddar,  Devon, 

and Cornwall. 

Sept.,  read  with  Osborne  Gordon.    Wrote 

"  Farewell " Heme  Hill. 

Kept  Michaelmas  Term  at  Oxford. 

Jan.,   to   Oxford.     Threatened  with  con-  — 

sumption    (May)  ....  — 

Sept.  25.     Traveled  with  parents  by  the 

Loire  and  Riviera  to  (Nov.  28)  .        .     Rome. 
Jan.  9- March  17,   at   Naples;     March 

22 -April  18,  at Rome. 

May  1,  Bologna;    May  6-17,    Venice; 

June  5,  at Geneva. 

June  12,  Basle;  returning  by  Laon  and 

Calais  to  (June  29)       ....     Heme  Hill. 
Aug.,  Wales.    Sept.  2 -Oct.    21,   under 

Dr.  Jephson  at Leamington. 

Reading  with  O.  Gordon;  drawing  les- 
sons from  Harding       ....     Heme  Hill. 
May,  passed  final  examination,  and  took 

B.  A.  degree  at Oxford. 

Saw  Turner's   Swiss   sketches :  study  of 

ivy Heme  Hill. 

May  24 -Aug.    19,     tour  with    parents: 

France,  Switzerland    ....     Germany. 
Wrote  "  Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  I.,  during 

winter  at Heme  Hill. 

Removed  from  Heme  Hill  to  (No.  163)     Denmark  HilL 
Oct.  28,  took  M.  A.  degree       .        .        .     Oxford. 
May   14,   tour  with  parents;  June,  with 

Couttet,     Chamouni;     July    16,    met 

Forbes    at     Simplon;    July   19,   with 

Gordon  at  Zermatt        ....     Switzerland. 
Aug.  17,  18,  studying  old  masters  at  the 

Louvre Paris. 

Aug.  24,  to  Denmark  Hill.     Dec.    12,  to     Hastings. 

Jan.  10,  to Denmark  Hill. 

April,  first  tour  alone ;  June  9,  to  Pisa ; 

last   poems ;    first  study  of   Christian 

art,  Lucca  and  Florence ;  July,  Macu- 

gnaga  and  St.  Gothard  :  end  of  August, 


1845. 

Age  26, 


1846.- 
Age  27 


1847- 
Age   28 


Age  29 


1849.- 
Age  30, 


1850.- 

Age  31 

1851.- 
Age  32 


APPENDIX. 

Italian  lakes;  with  J.  D.  Harding  at 
Verona,    and    studying    Tintoret    at 

Venice Italy. 

During  the  winter  wrote  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers," Vol.  II Denmark  Hill. 

April  2,  with  parents  through  France  and 
the  Jura  to  Geneva;  April  27,  Mont 
Cenis ;  May  4,  Vercelli ;  May  io,  to 
Verona;  May  14,  to  Venice;  June  3,  Italy, 
to  Bologna ;  June  7,  to  Florence ; 
Aug.  15,  Geneva ;  Aug.  23,  Chamouni ; 
Aug.  31,  to  the  Oberland 

Oct.  6  returned  to Denmark  Hill. 

June,  at  Oxford,  and  Ambleside  ;  July  at     Leamington. 
.  Aug.,  tour  in  Scotland ;  Sept.   at     .        .     Crossmount. 

Nov.,  Folkestone ;  Dec.  at      .        .        .     Denmark  Hill. 
-April    10,   married  at   Perth;   thence  to     Keswick. 
,  Summer,  attempted  pilgrimage  to  Eng- 
lish cathedrals Salisbury. 

Aug.  -  Oct.,  tour  to  Amiens,    Paris,  and     Normandy. 
Winter,  writing  "Seven  Lamps"  at  31 

Park  St London. 

April    18,     tour  with     parents      through 

France  and  Jura;  June  1,  Vevey;  June 

at  Chamouni ;  July,  St.  Martin's  and 

Zermatt Switzerland. 

Nov.,  settled  for  the  winter  at  .        .     Venice. 

-Studying   architecture  till  end   of   Feb. 

at Venice. 

Began    the    study    of    missals;     wrote 

"  Stones  of  Venice,"  Vol.  I.         .        .     Park  St. 
-  "  Notes  on   Sheepfolds  ;  "  acquaintance 

with  Carlyle  and  Maurice     ...  — 

May,  first  defense  of  the   Pre-Raphael- 

ites — 

Aug.  4,  with  Mr.  Moore  through  France  ; 
Aug.  1 1,  met  Mr.  Newton,  Les  Rousses ; 
Aug.  14,  Chamouni;  19,  Geneva;  22, 
Great  St.  Bernard ;  Sept.  1,  settled  for 

winter  at Venice. 

(Dec.  19,  J.  M.  W.  Turner  died.) 
vi 


1852.— 
Age  33. 


1853.- 
Age  34. 

1854— 
Age  35- 


1855.— 
Age  36. 


1856.— 
Age  37. 


1857— 
Age   38, 


CHRONOLOGY. 

Until  the  end  of  June  studying  architec- 
ture       Venice. 

During  autumn  and  winter  writing 
"  Stones  of  Venice,"  Vols.  II.  and  III., 
at  (No.  29) Heme  Hill. 

Aug.,  with  Dr.  Acland  and  Mr.  Millais  at    Glenfinlas. 

Nov.  1  -  1 8,   "  Lectures  on  Architecture 

and  Painting" Edinburgh. 

June  4,  with  parents  at     .        .        .        .     Geneva. 

June,  drawing  for  proposed  work  on  Swiss 

Towns,  at Thun. 

July  2,  Lucerne,  Chamouni ;  Aug.  .     Mont  Cenis. 

Oct.  30,  Working  Men's  College  inaugu- 
rated      Denmark  Hill. 

Nov.  18 -Dec.  9,  Lectures  to  Decorative 

Workmen — 

May,  Academy  Notes  begun    ...  — 

July   and  Aug.,   Tunbridge  Wells;  and 

studying  shipping  at    .        .        .        .     Deal. 

During  this  year  writing  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers," Vols.  III.  and  IV.       .        .        .     Denmark  Hill. 

April  15.  Address  to  workmen  of  the 
Museum Oxford. 

May  14,  tour  with  parents:  Amiens, 
Basle ;  June  10-23,  Interlaken ;  July  29, 
with  Messrs.  Norton,  Simon  &  Trench, 
Chamouni ;  Aug.,  drawing  for  "  Swiss 
Towns  "  at  Fribourg    ....     Switzerland. 

Winter,  writing  "  Elements  of  Drawing  " 

at Denmark  Hill. 

Jan.  23,  lecture  to  Architectural  Associa- 
tion:   "Imagination  in  Architecture"  — 

April  3,  address,  St.  Martin's  School  of 

Art — 

April  6,  evidence  before  National  Gal- 
lery Site  Commission  ....  — 

May  6,  address   on  Thomas  Seddon  (at 

Society  of  Arts) — 

July  10, 13,  lectures,  "Political  Economy 

of  Art " Manchester. 

Aug.  and  Sept.,  tour  with  parents  in        .     Scotland, 
vii 


APPENDIX. 

1857.  —  Oct.,  address   to  Working    Men's  Col- 
Age  38.      lege  on  "  France "  Denmark  Hill. 

"        During  the  winter  arranging  Turners  at 

National  Gallery  ....  — 

1858.  —  Jan.    13,  lecture,    "Conventional    Art," 

Age  39.       South  Kensington  Museum         .        .  — 

"       Feb.  16,  lecture,  "  Work  of  Iron  "  (Sussex 

Hotel) Tunbridge  Wells. 

*       March  27,    official    report     on  Turner 

bequest Denmark  Hill. 

"       April  16,  address,  "Study  of  Art"  (St. 

Martin's  School)  ....     Denmark  Hill. 

"       May  13,  tour  alone  to  draw  for  "Swiss 

Towns;"  May  18        ....     Rheinfelden. 
"       June  9,    Bremgarten,    Baden;    July   to 

Aug.  1 Bellinzona. 

"       Aug.,  studying  Paul  Veronese  at     .        .    Turin. 

"        Sept.  1,  Mont  Cenis,  returning  to    .        .     Denmark  Hill. 

"       Oct.  29,  inaugural  address  to  School  of 

Art Cambridge. 

1859.  —  Feb.  22,  lecture,  "  Unity  of  Art "  (Royal 

Age  40.      Institution) Manchester. 

"        March  1,  lecture,  "  Modern  Manufacture 

and  Design " Bradford. 

"  May  2,  address,  "  Switzerland  "  (Work- 
ing Men's  College)       ....     Denmark  Hill. 

"  May  14,  last  tour  with  parents :  Dussel- 
dorf  and  Berlin;  June,  Dresden,  Nu- 
remberg; July,  Munich       .        .        .     Germany. 

"        Aug.  1,  Schaffhausen ;   Aug.  18,  Thun ; 

"  Sept.  4,  Bonneville;  Sept.  10,  Lau- 
sanne ;  ten  days  or  a  fortnight  at  St. 
Michael,  Mont  Cenis  ....    Switzerland. 

"       Oct.  7 Denmark  Hill. 

"        Nov.    1,    Winnington;    winter,   writing 

"  Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  V.        .        .  — 

i860.  —  March    8,    address,    "Religious     Art" 
Age  41.       (Working  Men's  College)    ...  — 

"       March  26,   evidence  before   Committee 

on  Public  Institutions  ...  — 

"       "  Modern  Painters "  finished   ...  — 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

(1834-1860.) 

The  book-lover  and  collector  of  editions  will  consult u  A  Biblio- 
graphy of  the  Writings  in  Prose  and  Verse  of  John  Ruskin,  LL. 
D.,  edited  by  Thomas  J.  Wise,  London.  Printed  for  subscribers 
only,  1889-1892;"  an  elaborate  work,  of  which  Vol.  I.  and  five 
parts  of  Vol.  II.  (329 -f- 161  pages)  have  appeared  up  to  September, 
1892.  The  general  reader  will  be  content  with  short  notices,  briefly 
recording  Mr.  Ruskin's  literary  activity.  With  permission  from 
Mr.  Wise  and  his  co-editor,  Mr.  James  P.  Smart,  Jr.,  to  avail 
myself  of  their  work,  I  have  rearranged  the  titles  of  Mr.  Ruskin's 
writings,  whether  issued  separately  or  in  periodicals,  under  the 
dates  of  their  first  appearance  in  print;  and  I  have  omitted  several 
mere  compilations  not  actually  edited  by  him,  and  reports  of 
lectures  not  furnished  by  him,  as  well  as  minor  letters  given  in 
"  Arrows  of  the  Chace "  and  "  Ruskiniana,"  or  mentioned  in  the 
great  Bibliography  as  uncollected. 

The  publisher's  name  is  given  in  brackets  after  each  work: 
English  editions  only  are  named.  Works  without  name  of  maga- 
zine or  publisher  were  printed  for  private  circulation. 

1834.  —  "Enquiries  on  the  Causes  of  the  Color  of  the  Water  of 
the  Rhine  ;  "  "  Note  on  the  Perforation  of  a  Leaden  Pipe  by 
Rats ; "  and  "  Facts  and  Considerations  on  the  Strata  of  Mont 
Blanc,"  etc.  (Loudon's  "  Magazine  of  Natural  History  "  for 
Sept.,  Nov.,  and  Dec),  reprinted  in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 

1835.  —  Saltzburg,  and  Fragments  fro?n  a  Metrical  yournal 
("  Friendship's  Offering,"  Smith,  Elder  and  Co.).1 

1836.  —  "The  Induration  of  Sandstone;"  "Observations  on  the 
Causes  which  occasion  the  Variation  of  Temperature  between 

1  All  the  poems  — their  titles  are  given  in  italics  —  were  reprinted  in 
"  The  Poems  of  John  Ruskin,"  1891 ;  and  all  except  those  of  1835  in 
"Poems  — J.  R.,"i8so. 

ix 


APPENDIX. 

Spring  and  River  Water"  (Loudon's  "Mag.  Nat.  Hist."  for 
Sept.  and  Oct.),  reprinted  in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 

1836.—  The  Months  ("Friendship's  Offering"). 

1837.—  The  Last  Smile  ("  Friendship's  Offering  "). 

1837.  —  "Leoni,"  a  legend  of  Italy  ("Friendship's  Offering"),  re- 
printed separately  with  preface  in  1 868. 

1837-8.  — "The  Poetry  of  Architecture;"  a  series  of  articles 
(Loudon's  "  Architectural  Magazine  ")  reprinted  1892  (George 
Allen). 

1838.  —  "The  Convergence  of  Perpendiculars,"  five  articles;  and 
"The  Planting  of  Churchyards"  (Loudon's  "Arch.  Mag."). 

1838. —  The  Scythian  Grave,  Remembrance,  and  Christ-Church, 
Oxford  ("  Friendship's  Offering  "). 

1839.  —  "  Whether  Works  of  Art  may,  with  Propriety,  be  combined 
with  the  Sublimity  of  Nature;  and  what  would  be  the  most 
Appropriate  Situation  for  the  Proposed  Monument  to  the  Mem- 
ory of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  Edinburgh "  (Loudon's  "  Arch. 
Mag."  for  January). 

1839.  —  Song — We  care  not  what  Skies;  song — Though  thou 
hast  not  a  Feeling;  Horace  —  Iter  ad  Brundusium  ("  Lon- 
don Monthly  Miscellany  "  for  January). 

1839.  —  Memory,  and  The  Name  ("London  Monthly  Misc."  for 
Feb.). 

1839.  —  Canzonet — The  Winter's  Chill;  Fragments  from  a  Me- 
teorological Journal;  canzonet — There ''s  a  Change;  and 
The  Mirror  ("  London  Monthly  Misc."  for  March). 

1839.  —  Song  of  the  Tyrolese  ("  London  Monthly  Misc."  for  April). 

1839.  —  Salsette  and  Elephanta  (Newdigate  prize  poem),  printed 
separately  and  in  "  Oxford  Prize  Poems  "  (J.  Vincent),  new 
edition,  1879  (Allen). 

1839.  —  "  Remarks  on  the  Present  State  of  Meteorological  Science  " 
(Trans.  Met.  Soc),  reprinted  in  "Monthly  Met.  Mag."  for 
April,  1870;  and  in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 

1839.  —  Scythian  Banquet  Song  ("  Friendship's  Offering"). 

1840. —  The  Scythian  Guest  ("Friendship's  Offering"),  reprinted 
with  preface,  1849. 

1840-43.  —  The  Broken  Chain  ("  Friendship's  Offering  "). 

1840.-7^  [A dele]  ("  Friendship's  Offering  "). 

1 84 1. —  The  Tears  of  Psammenitus,  The  Two  Paths,  The  Old 
Waterwheel,  Farewell,  The  Departed  Light,  and  Agonia 
("  Friendship's  Offering  "). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

1842. —  The  Last  Song  of  Arion,  and  The  Hills  of  Carrara 
("Friendship's  Offering"). 

1843.  —  "Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  I.  Seven  editions  of  this  vol- 
ume were  published  separately  up  to  1867  (Smith,  Elder  & 
Co.)     For  subsequent  editions  see  under  i860. 

1844.  —  The  Battle  of  Montenotte,  and  A  Walk  in  Chamouni 
("  Friendship's  Offering  "). 

1845.  —  La  Madonna  deW Acqua  (Heath's  "  Book  of  Beauty"). 
1845. —  The  Old  Seaman,    and   The  Alps,  seen  from  Marengo 

("  Keepsake  "). 

1846.  —  "  Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  II.  Five  editions  of  this  volume 
were  published  separately  up  to  1869  (Smith,  Elder).  Also  re- 
arranged edition  in  2  vols.,  of  which  there  have  been  four 
issues  (Allen).     For  other  editions  see  under  i860. 

1846.  — Mont  Blanc,  and  The  Arve  at  Cluse  ("  Keepsake  "). 

1846.  —  Lines  written  among  the  Basses  Alpes,  and  The  Glacier 
(Heath's  "  Book  of  Beauty"). 

1847.  —  Lord  Lindsay's  "  Christian  Art  "  ("  Quarterly  Review  "  for 
June),  reprinted  in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 

1848.  —  Eastlake's  "  History  of  Oil  Painting  "("Quarterly  Review" 
for  March),  reprinted  in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 

1849.  —  "Samuel  Prout "  ("Art  Journal"  for  March),  reprinted 
separately  1870,  and  in  "On  the  Old  Road." 

1849. — "The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,"  two  editions  (Smith, 
Elder),  and  four  subsequent  issues  (Allen). 

1850.  —  "Poems  —  J.  R. ;"  containing  the  above-mentioned,  with 
additions. 

1851. —  "The  King  of  the  Golden  River"  (written  1841),  seven 
editions  (Smith,  Elder),  and  three  subsequent  editions  (Allen). 

1851.  —  "  The  Stones  of  Venice,"  Vol.  I. ;  two  editions  of  this  vol- 
ume published  separately  (Smith,  Elder) ;  for  other  editions 
see  under  1853. 

1 85 1.  —  "  Examples  of  the  Architecture  of  Venice"  (Smith,  Elder; 
and  Colnaghi),  reissued  1887  (Allen). 

1851.  — "  Notes  on  the  Construction  of  Sheepfolds;  "  two  editions 
(Smith,  Elder),  and  two  subsequent  reissues  (Allen),  also  re- 
printed in  "  On  the  Old  Road."  With  this  may  be  named :  — 
"  Two  letters  concerning  Notes,  etc.,"  addressed  to  the  Rev. 
F.  D.  Maurice,  1851 ;  printed  by  Dr.  F.  J.  Furnivall,  1889. 

1851.  —  "  Pre-Raphaelitism,"  two  editions  (Smith,  Elder),  reprinted 
in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 


APPENDIX. 

1852.  —  "  The  National  Gallery  "  (letters  to  "  The  Times  "),  printed 
separately ;  also  in  "  Arrows  of  the  Chace." 

1853.  —  "The  Stones  of  Venice,"  Vols.  II.  and  III.,  two  editions 
of  each  published  separately  (Smith,  Elder).  The  three  vols. 
were  published  together  in  1874,  tne  so-called  Autograph 
edition  (Smith,  Elder),  and  reprinted  1886  (Allen).  In  1879 
appeared  the  Travelers'  edition,  abridged ;  four  issues  (Allen). 
With  this  may  be  named:  "On  the  Nature  of  Gothic,"  etc. 
(from  "  Stones  of  Venice  "),  printed  by  F.  J.  Furnivall,  1854  ; 
two  issues  (Smith,  Elder),  and  reprinted  in  antique  form  by 
William  Morris,  1892  (Allen). 

853-60.  —  "Giotto  and  his  Works  in  Padua,"  in  three  parts;  col- 
lected into  one  vol.  1877  (Arundel  Society). 

854. —  "  Lectures  on  Architecture  and  Painting  "(Edinburgh,  Nov., 
1853)  ;  two  editions  (Smith,  Elder),  new  edition,  1891  (Allen). 

854.  —  "Letters  to  the  Times  on  the  Principal  Pre-Raphaelite 
Pictures  in  the  Exhibition ; "  printed  separately,  reprinted 
1876,  also  in  "Arrows  of  the  Chace." 

854.  —  "  The  Opening  of  the  Crystal  Palace,"  etc.  (Smith,  Elder) ; 
reprinted  in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 

855.  —  "  Notes  on  some  of  the  Principal  Pictures  in  .  .  .  the  Royal 
Academy  ; "  three  editions  (Smith,  Elder). 

856.  —  "Notes  on  .  .  .  the  Royal  Academy,"  etc.,  No.  II.T  six 
editions  (Smith,  Elder). 

856.  —  "Modern  Painters,"  Vols.  III.  and  IV.:  two  editions  of 
each  (Smith,  Elder)  ;  for  subsequent  issues  see  under  i860. 

856.  —  "  The  Harbors  of  England,"  two  editions  (E.  Gambart  & 
Co.)  ;  edition  3  (Day  &  Son)  ;  edition  4  (T.  J.  Allman)  ;  edition 
5,  dated  1877  (Smith,  Elder). 

857.  —  "Notes  on  .  .  .  the  Royal  Academy,"  etc.,  No.  III.,  two 
editions  (Smith,  Elder). 

857.  —  "Notes  on  the  Turner  Gallery  at  Marlborough  House ;  " 
five  editions  variously  revised  (Smith,  Elder). 

857.  —  "  Catalogue  of  the  Turner  Sketches  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery," Part  I. ;  also  enlarged  edition,  1857. 

857.  — "  Catalogue  of  the  Sketches  and  Drawings  by  J.  M.  W. 
Turner,  R.  A.,  exhibited  at  Marlborough  House,"  1857-8; 
also  enlarged  edition,  1858. 

857.  —  "The  Elements  of  Drawing;"  eight  "thousands"  (Smith, 
Elder);  new  edition,  1892  (Allen);  partly  reprinted  in  "Our 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Sketching  Club  "  by  the  Rev.  R.  St.  J.  Tyrwhitt ;  four  editions 
(Macmillan). 

1857.  —  "  The  Political  Economy  of  Art,"  three  editions  (Smith, 
Elder) ;  reprinted  in  "  A  Joy  for  Ever  (and  its  Price  in  the 
Market),"  three  editions  (Allen) :  which  includes  the  follow- 
ing pamphlets :  — 

"Education  in  Art,"  1858  (Trans.  Nat.  Assoc,  for  the  Pro- 
motion of  Social  Science)  ;  "  Remarks  addressed  to  the  Mans- 
field Art  Night  Class,"  1873;  and  "Social  Policy,"  etc.  (a 
paper  for  the  Metaphysical  Society),  1875. 
1858. —  Notice  respecting  some  artificial  sections  illustrating  the 
Geology  of  Chamouni  (Proc.  Royal  Soc.  of  Edinburgh). 

1858.  —  "  Notes  on  ...  the  Royal  Academy,"  etc.,  No.  IV.  (Smith, 
Elder). 

1858.  —  "Inaugural  Address  at  the  Cambridge  School  of  Art" 
(Deighton,  Bell  &  Co.,  and  Bell  &  Daldy) ;  another  edition 
printed  for  the  committee  of  the  school ;  republished  sepa- 
rately, 1879  (Allen),  and  reprinted  in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 

1859.  —  "  The  Oxford  Museum,"  by  Henry  W.  Acland,  M.  D.,  etc., 
and  John  Ruskin ;  various  issues  forming  four  editions  (Parker, 
and  Smith,  Elder).  Mr.  Ruskin's  contributions  were  reprinted 
in  "  Arrows  of  the  Chace." 

1859.  —  "  Notes  on  .  .  .  the  Royal  Academy,"  etc.,  No.  V.  (Smith, 
Elder). 

1859.  —  "The  Two  Paths"  (Smith,  Elder),  and  three  subsequent 
editions  (Allen).  The  work  includes:  "The  Unity  of  Art" 
(lecture  at  Manchester,  Feb.  22,  1859),  privately  printed. 

1859.  — "The  Elements  of  Perspective"  (Smith,  Elder). 

i860.  —  "  Sir  Joshua  and  Holbein  "  ("  Comhill  Mag."  for  March)  ; 
reprinted  in  "  On  the  Old  Road." 

i860.  —  "Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  V.  (Smith,  Elder).  The  five 
volumes  of  "  Modern  Painters "  were  published  together  in 
the  issue  known  as  the  Autograph  edition  in  1873  (Smith, 
Elder).  They  were  reprinted  with  additions  and  index  in 
1888,  and  again  in  1892  (Allen).  With  these  may  be  named  : 
"  Frondes  Agrestes  "  (selections  from  "  Modern  Painters  "  by 
Miss  Susanna  Beever),  edited  by  Mr.  Ruskin,  1875  >  °f  which 
ten  issues,  totaling  18,000  copies,  have  been  published  (Allen). 
"In  Montibus  Sanctis,  Studies  of  Mountain  Form  and  its 
Visible  Causes,  collected  and  completed  out  of  '  Modern  Paint- 


APPENDIX. 

ers;'"  two  parts  only  appeared,  1884-5  (Allen);  and  "Cceli 
Enarrant,  Studies  of  Cloud  Form,"  etc.,  1885  (Allen). 

The  well-known  "  Selections  from  the  Writings  [above- 
named]  of  John  Ruskin"  were  published  in  1861  (Smith, 
Elder). 


CATALOGUE  OF  DRAWINGS  BY  MR.  RUSKIN. 


(1829-1859). 

This  list  contains  only  the  more  important  and  dated  drawings. 
A  full  catalogue  raisonne"  would  be  almost  as  elaborate  a  work  as 
the  great  Bibliography;  but  the  following  entries  will  serve  to 
show  Mr.  Ruskin's  industry  in  practical  art,  and  the  development 
of  his  style  of  draughtsmanship. 


1829, 

1830. 
1831, 


1832. 
1833. 


1834. 


* 


—  Maps,  of  which  a  specimen  was  shown  at 
the  Fine  Art  Society's  Galleries,  1878 

—  Copies  from  Cruikshank's  "  Grimm  " 

—  Canterbury  Cathedral  (first  architectural 
study),  and  Battle  Abbey  .... 

Sevenoaks;  Rocks  at  Tunbridge  Wells ;  Can- 
terbury; Battle  Abbey       .... 
First  study  of  clouds  (pen  and  pencil)  :  Dover 

—  Tunbridge  Castle  (pencil,  "  drawing 
master's  style  ") 

—  [First  Swiss  tour ;  vignettes  on  gray  paper 
worked  up  in  pen  from  sketches]  Mont 
Blanc ;  Aiguilles ;  Wetterhorn  and  Ber- 
nese Alps ;  Jungfrau,  etc.,  Sempach ; 
Rhine,  Sargans  and  Coire;  Pissevache 
and  Bex;  Lille;  Spliigen  ;  Domo  d' Os- 
sola;  Between  Novi  and  Genoa;  Medi- 
terranean ;  Dijon  Church ;  and  other  vi- 
gnettes. Watch-tower  at  Andernach 
{Poems,  1891).  In  pencil:  Cassel,  H6tel 
de  Ville ;  a  Facade  ;  a  Tree 

—  Twenty-eight  original  vignettes  on  white 
paper  in  imitation  of  Turner's  vignettes 
in  Rogers's  Poems;  of  which  the  Jung- 
frau, published  in  Poems,  1891,  is  a  speci- 
men ;  with  others  from  Prout  and  Turner  . 

xv 


Brantwood. 


Miss  Gale. 


Brantwood. 


APPENDIX. 

St.  Mary's,  Bristol  (dated  1833),  Proutesque  G.  Holt,  Esq. 
1835.  —  [Second  Swiss  tour;  pencil  drawings  in 
Prout's  style]  Dover;  Calais;  Rouen 
{Poems,  1 891)  ;  Rouen,  facade,  Arc  de 
PHorloge  and  street;  Rouen,  Butter-tower 
("  Mag.  of  Art,"  Jan.,  1888) ;  Sens ;  Nancy 
(Poems,  1891);  Tete  Noir;  Bex;  La 
Halle,  Neuchatel;  Baden,  Switzerland;  a 
Turret;  Zug  ("Poetry  of  Architecture," 
1892);  St.  Gothard;  Amsteg;  Meyringen; 
Rosenlaui ;  St.  Gall Brantwood. 

Main  street  of  Innsbruck       ....     Dr.  Pocock. 

Zirl;  Stelvio;  St.  Anastasia,  Verona;  Vi- 
cenza  (?)  ;  St.  Mark's ;  Ulm  ("  Poetry  of 
Architecture,"  1892) Brantwood. 

Strasburg;  Chateau,  Thun    ....     Oxford. 

[The  following  are  in  pen]  Rouen,  Cathedral 
Spire ;  Montreuil ;  Bonneville;  MontVelan 
(Poems,  1891);  Fortress  in  Val  d' Aosta 
(Poems,  1 891) ;  Ancienne  Maison (Poems); 
Hospital,  Pass  of   St.  Gothard  (Poems); 

Grimsel Brantwood. 

1836. —  Richmond — 

1837.  —  [Still  in  the  Proutesque  style,  but  more 

advanced ;  quarto  imperial  size]  Brougham 
Castle;  Furness  Abbey;  Ruin  near  Am- 
bleside (Poems) ;  R.  Brathay ;  Rydal 
(Poems) ;  Choir  of  Bolton  Abbey    .        .  — 

West  end  of  Bolton  Abbey ;  High  Tor,  Mat- 
lock      Mrs.  Talbot. 

Rocks  above  Strid  ;  Matlock ;  Ashby ;  Peter- 
borough ;  Lichfield  Cathedral;  Dorches- 
ter, and  niche Brantwood. 

Cottage  in  Troutbeck  (line  and  wash)  .        .    G.  Holt,  Esq. 

Also  drawings  for  "  Poetry  of  Architecture," 
as  the  Cottage  near  Aosta  (reengraved 
1892) — 

1838.  — [Same  style  and  size.]    Lodgings  at  Ox- 

ford   .  Brantwood. 

Stirling ;  Stirling  from  Cambuskenneth  Ab- 
bey      Mrs.  Talbot. 

xvi 


CATALOGUE   OF    DRAWINGS    BY    MR.    RUSKIN. 

Palace  of  Stirling;  Edinburgh  from  Castle 
Rock  ;  Roslin,  Prentice's  pillar  ;  H addon 

Hall  {Poems) Brantwood. 

1839.  —  St.  Michael's,  Cornwall  (pencil  and  white)  — 

1840-41.  —  [New  style  based  on  David  Roberts, 
pencil  and  tint,  half  imperial  size ;  of  these 
fine  drawings  the  chief  are]  Chateau  de 
Blois  ;  St.  Pierre,  Avignon;  Nice  ("  Poetry 
of  Architecture  ")  ;  Pisa,  Spina  chapel      .  — 

Pisa,  Spina  Chapel  (another)  at  St.  George's 
Museum Sheffield. 

Ponte  Vecchio,  Florence ;  Palazzo  Vecchio, 
Florence ;  Piazza  S.  M.  del  Pianto,  Rome 
("Amateur's  Portfolio,"  1844);  Quattro 
Fontane,  Rome ;  Fountain  at  Rome ;  the 
Aventine;  Street  of  Trinita  di  Monte; 
Aqueducts  of  Campagna  ;  La  Riccia  (see 
"  Modern  Painters,"  vol.  i.,  p.  153)  ;  Naples, 
Gate ;  Castel  del  Uovo ;  Street  Architec- 
ture ;  Windows,  Street,  and  Bay  ("  Poetry 
of  Architecture,"  1892)  ;  Castel  Vecchio 
and  other  drawings.  Pompeii ;  Castle  of 
Itri  (see  "  Praeterita,"  ii.,  p.  91)  ;  Bologna; 
Fountain  at  Verona ;  Piazza  d'  Erbe,  Ve- 
rona ;  and  Giant's  Staircase,  Venice  (Ve- 
rona Exhibition,  1870)  ;  Venice,  Ca'  Con- 
tarini  Fasan Brantwood. 

Also  several  water-color  sketches  in  style  of 

Copley  Fielding — 

[On  returning  to  England,  autumn  of  1841, 
produced  colored  drawings  in  imitation  of 
Turner's  vignettes;  Wendlebury  Church 
(given  to  the  Rev.  Walter  Brown)  ;  and 
Amboise ;  Coast  of  Genoa ;  and  Glacier 
des  Bois  {Poems).'] 
1842.  —  [After  lessons  from  Harding:  first  natu- 
ralistic study,  the  sketch  of  Ivy,  and  Aspen 
at  Fontainebleau  (now  lost  ?)  ;  and  last 
Proutesque  drawings.]  Tree  at  Dulwich 
{Poems) ;  Calais :  Town-hall,  Belfry  and 
Lighthouse — 


APPENDIX. 


Study  at  Chamouni  (pencil,  wash  and  white, 
quarto  imperial) Sir  J.  Simon. 

Great  square  at  Cologne  (given  to  Miss  Pritch- 
ard) ;  St.  Quentin;  Antwerp;  Bruges        .  — 

Perhaps  this  year,  Falls  of  Schaffhausen  (12 
x  7^)  —  the  study  Turner  liked  —  and 
sketch  of  same  subject;  sketch-book  (6£ 
X  8^  in.)  with  journal  of  tour;  and  the 
two  first  studies  of  early  sacred  art :  St. 
Peter,  attributed  to  Cimabue ;  and  Virgin, 
attributed  to  Duccio,  Christ  Church,  Ox- 
ford         Prof.  C.E.Norton. 

1844.  —  [First  diagrammatic  sketching,  giving  up 

the  attempt  to  make  pictures ;  studies  of 

geology  and  botany  for  "  Modern  Painters  " 

at  Chamouni.] 
Panorama  of  Simplon  and  Bernese  Alps  .  Sheffield  Museum. 
Fletschhorn  and  Weisshorn,  at  Simplon 
Some  drawings  at  Chamouni,  Aiguille  Verte 

1845.  —  [After  study  of  Turner's  "Liber  Studio- 

rum,"  using  strong  outline  in  pen  or  pencil, 

and  wash  in  full  color  or  chiaroscuro.] 

Towers  at  Montbard 

Lucca:  San  Michele 

Pisa :  Duomo  ;  Baptistery  ;  studies  in  Campo 

Santo Brantwood. 

Pisa :  Sta.  Maria  della  Spina  .  .  Sheffield  Museum. 
Florence  :  San  Miniato  (6|  x  3^  in.)  .  .  Prof.  Norton. 
Florence :  Garden  of  San  Miniato ;  Avenue 

of    Porta   Romana ;    View   of    Arno  and 

Town ;  Fiesole ;   Copy  of  Angelico's  An- 
nunciation   ("  Modern    Painters  ")  ;     Vo- 

gogna.       Milan;    Eve    and    the   Serpent 

("  Seven  Lamps  ") Brantwood. 

Study  of  Tree  (Aug.  4th)       .         .        .        .     Oxford. 
Torrent  in  Val  Anzasca  (half  imp.,  color)     .     Brantwood. 
Studies  on  St.  Gothard 

Some  at  Brantwood,  one  owned  by    Prof.  Norton. 
Baveno:   Mill   and   Sunset   {Poems,    1891). 

Brescia :    Twilight    (copied    for   "  Storm 

Cloud"  lecture,  1884);  Verona;  Vicenza, 
xviii 


Brantwood. 


Heme  Hill. 
Oxford. 


CATALOGUE   OF   DRAWINGS    BY    MR.    RUSKIN. 

Windows   and  interior  (pencil) ;   Venice, 

Ca  d'  Oro ;  Ca'  Foscari ;  copies,  etc.        .     Brantwood. 

Capitals  at  Venice,  sketch  on  brown  paper 
(8£  x  6  in.) Prof.  Norton. 

Perhaps  this  year,  two  sketches  of  Ponte 
Vecchio,  Florence  .  .  .  F.  W.  Hilliard,  Esq. 
1846.  —  [Bold  and  clear  tinting  with  full  brush 
over  outline.]  Calais  Belfry;  the  Cathe- 
dral before  Restoration,  and  other  draw- 
ings at  Sens Brantwood. 

Perhaps  this  year,  Mountain  Gloom  at  St. 
Jean  de  Maurienne Sir  J.  Simon. 

Porch  of  Duomo,  Verona ;  St.  Mark's  after 
Rain,  Venice      ......     Oxford. 

Griffin  at  Verona  "  (Modern  Painters ") ; 
Window,  Ca'  Foscari,  Balcony  and  Capital 
("  Seven  Lamps  ") ;  Cottage  Gallery,  Pis- 
toja  (?)  ("  Poetry  of  Architecture  ")  ;  Lau- 
terbrunnen  Cliffs Brantwood. 

St.    Urbain,     Troyes ;     Ferrara     Cathedral 

("  Seven  Lamps  ") Sir  J.  Simon. 

Perhaps  this  year,  Folkestone  from  the  Pa- 
vilion Hotel  (sepia,  quarto)        ...  — 

1848.  —  Caen,  main  street;  St.  Lo,  Cathedral  (both 

half  imperial) Prof.  Norton. 

Caudebec,  flamboyant  sculpture         .        .     Harvard  College. 
Also    drawings    and    sketches  for   "  Seven 

Lamps " Brantwood. 

1849.  —  Annecy,  houses  and  bridge  (pen  and  tint, 

6£  x  4|  in.) Prof.  Norton. 

Mountains  from  Vevey ;  several  drawings  of 
the  Matterhorn Brantwood. 

Matterhorn,  for  "  Modern  Painters  "  (color, 
quarto  imperial)  ;  perhaps  this  year,  Wood- 
land, Rock,  and  Cloud,  in  the  byway  to 
the  Chapeau,  Chamouni  (sepia,  10  x  15 
in.) ;  and  Church  tower,  Courmayeur  (color, 
10X6  in.) Sir  J.  Simon. 

Camera  lucida  drawing  of  Chamouni ;  detail 
of  Doge's  Palace,  and  other  drawings  for 

"  Stones  of  Venice  " Brantwood. 

xix 


APPENDIX. 

1851-2.  —  Further  drawings  for  "Stones  of  Ven- 
ice"     Brantwood. 

Also  (Feb.  24,  1852)  Vicenza  (color,  10  X  5 
in.) ;  and  perhaps  Capitals  of  St.  Mark's 
(color,  6x4  in.) Sir  J.  Simon. 

Sketch  of  Tintoret's  Annunciation  (3^  X  4* 
in.) Prof.  Norton. 

Sarcophagus  of  Can  Mastino  II. ;  and  detail 
of  Ducal  Palace Verona  Ex.,  1870. 

1853.  —  Gneiss    rock    in    Glenfinlas  —  lampblack 

(Cook's  "  Studies  in  Ruskin  ")  .         .        .     Oxford. 
Perhaps   this  year,  Granite  boulder  (color, . 

12  x   i8£  in.) Prof.  Norton. 

1854.  —  Outlines  of  Turner's  two  Nottinghams  and 

other  drawings  for   "Modern    Painters," 

Vols.  III.  and  IV — 

Jib  of  Calais  boat  ("  Praeterita  ")  .        .        .    Brantwood. 

Perhaps  this  year :  Lake  of  Brientz  (9^  x  6| 
in.),  and  Old  Hall  in  Worcestershire  or 
Herefordshire  (quarto)       ....     Prof.  Norton. 

Perhaps  this  year,  Towers  of  Fribourg  and 
copy  of  Turner's  St.  Gothard  "  (Modern 
Painters,"  Vol.  IV.)        .        .        .     Mrs.  W.  H.  Churchill. 

Also  Pine  forest  at  St.  Michel ;  and  Glacier 
des  Bossons,  Chamouni  (Cook's  "  Studies 
in  Ruskin ") Oxford. 

1855.  —  Deer's  head  engraved  on  bone  (British 

Museum) Prof.  Norton. 

1856.  —  Amiens  Porch  ("  Bible  of  Amiens  ")        .    Oxford. 
Thun,  for  "Swiss  Towns,"  (13  X  18  in.)  or 

in  1854;    Fribourg  drawings   for   "Swiss 

Towns" Brantwood. 

Fribourg  (Cook's  "  Studies  in  Ruskin  ")       .     Oxford. 

Perhaps  this  year  the  following  colored  draw- 
ings :  Old  houses  at  Geneva  on  the  Rhone 
Island  (15  X  13  in.);  At  the  Foot  of  the 
Mole,  near  Bonneville  (14  X  12  in.)  ;  Rocks 
and  Lichen  below  Les  Montets,  Chamouni 
(14  X  1 1  in.) ;  Cascade  de  la  Folie,  Cha- 
mouni (12X9  in.)  ;  Head  of  the  Lake  of 
xx 


CATALOGUE   OF    DRAWINGS    BY    MR.    RUSKIN. 

Geneva  (14X6  in.)  ;  Wayside  near  Bonne- 
ville (14  X  9  in.) Sir  J.  Simon. 

1857. —  About  this  time,  Bird  drawn  at  the  Work- 
ing Men's  College      ....    Mr.  W.  H.  Hooper. 

Drawings  of  leaves  (Cook's  "  Studies  in  Rus- 
kin ")  and  others         .        .        .        .        .     Oxford. 
1858.  —  Enlargements  from  St.  Louis'  Psalter,  and 

others ;  Hotel  Dessin,  Calais     .        .        .     Brantwood. 

Basle ;     Rheinfelden ;     Hapsburg     (Cook's 

"Studies") Oxford. 

Several  studies  at  Baden,  Hapsburg,  Bellin- 
zona,  Turin ;  Storm  clouds  on  Mt.  Cenis, 
and  other  sketches Brantwood. 

Rheinfelden,  pen  sketch ;  Head  of  Veronese's 
Solomon  (11  X  h£  in)       ....     Prof.  Norton. 

Perhaps  this  year,  Lauffenburg  (body  color 

on  gray,  10  x  8  in.) Sir  J.  Simon. 

1859. —  Kempten  Tower,  two  sketches;  Field  of 
corn,  Munich ;  Lauterbrunnen ;  Dawn  at 
Neuchatel  (perhaps  this  year)    .        .        .     Prof.  Norton. 

Kempten,  pen  outline     ....         Harvard  College. 

Nuremberg,  Dormers,  and  Street ;  sketch  at 
Munich Brantwood. 

Nuremberg,  Moat  ("  Modern  Painters ")   .  — 

Copy  from  Vandyck  at  Munich     .        .        .     Heme  Hill. 

Lauffenburg ;  Bridge  of  Constance        .        .     Brantwood. 


END  OF  VOL.  I. 


DATE  DUE 

GAYLORD 

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